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LACORD AIRE'S 



Letters to Young Men. 



EDITED BY THE 



C0i//l/r DE MONTALEMBERT. 



TRANSLATED BY 



THE REV. [AMES TRENOR, 



BALTIMORE. 

KELLY. PIET AND COMPANY, 

1871. 



isii 



FATHER G. RYAN 
AUG- 20, 1940, 



TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 

The present work was promised about eighteen 
months ago in the "Memoir of the Abbe' Lacor- 
daire." The letters forming the present volume were, 
with one exception, written to young men. To those 
acquainted with the life of the writer, they will be 
particularly interesting. They will be glad of an 
opportunity of seeing into the depths of that great 
soul, of being allowed to become the spectators of his 
intimate relations, and of his unguarded moments. 

They will discover that breadth and solidity which 
deep reflection begets in highly gifted minds, and 
will often marvel at the power of the man, who, in 
the few spare moments left him by his incessant 
labors, could compress into a line the reflection of 
years. Nor will they be less attracted by the easy 
innate nobleness of character evident in these pages ; 
by the firmness and warmth of his friendship, by the 

(xi) 



xii TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 

massive soundness of his principles, and the generosity 
of his great heart. No one will be surprised that 
such a man as Lacordaire should be singled out oy 
Providence for the great work of converting the 
youth of France, nor that, under God, his splendid 
gifts should have succeeded in that work. 

The idea that such a book as the present one might 
be serviceable to youth in this country, prompted its 
translation. Faults will doubtless be met with in 
these pages. That the task was not totally devoid of 
difficulty, and that the Translator did what he could 
not to disfigure the beautiful original in its present 
garb, will be his excuse with the discriminating 
reader. 



Archiepiscopal Palace, Paris, Dec. 7, 1862. 

Dear Rev. Sir, 

Thanks to you, I am in the way of spending some 
very pleasant hours. I thank you beforehand, and thank 
God for the carrying out of your project, which I am 
convinced will be attended with the most precious 
results. 

These letters are exquisite. Your introduction greatly 
enhances the value of the book. Be persuaded of this, 
as well as of my earnest wishes for the complete success of 
the publication (which is inevitable) as also for the 
attainment of the end aimed at by you in all this. 

Believe in my deep and affectionate regard in Christ, 

F. N. Card. Morlot, 
Archbishop of Paris. 



-*o— 



Bordeaux, March 25, 1863. 
Rev. Sir, 

We must do more than thank you : we must congratu- 
late you again and again upon having done signal service 
to religion by the collecting and publishing under the 
head of Letters of the Reverend Father Lacordaire to 
Young Men, so precious a portion of the correspondence 
of that man of genius, who was, as you say, a great and 
holy religious. I am not astonished at the success with 

(xiii) 



XIV 



which your book has already met, and anticipate a still 
greater one for it. An inestimable treasure for persons 
of every time of life, but more especially for youth, for 
the young who are good, and those who wish to be good, 
may be found in this collection of pious thoughts and 
sound advice, in which solid reasoning and great ami- 
ability are joined to the deepest tenderness. To gain 
over or hold youth to Jesus Christ was during his life 
the special mission of Father Lacordaire. He will con- 
tinue this mission after his death, thanks to these letters, 
written in the secret of intimacy for one or two, which 
will speak however equally to all. 

The fact is that it was not one or two, but all young 
men that the illustrious Dominican loved ; all those souls 
redeemed by the Divine Blood were his life ; and this 
generous, tender, devoted, and deep love which so well 
explains his taking up the office of a teacher during the 
latter years of his life, was the secret of his immense 
influence. 

Our youth was first of all charmed by his lively and 
brilliant eloquence ; it was attracted to him by that 
indescribable youthfulness which never deserted him ; 
but the final triumph was owing to his charity, which 
fired youth more even than his eloquence. His heart 
won over theirs, which is the surest and most lasting of 
conquests : every pulsation of it is felt in those beautiful 
letters, in which we at times recognize the orator, but 
the general tone of which is marked by the simplicity 
of the confidant and friend. 

He is not only like a father talking to his children. 
Although he is as tender and authoritative as a father, 
he lays aside the title, which would appear to put too 



XV 



great a distance between him and those he loves, and 
adopts the more familiar title and language of a friend. 
He wants his age, his talent, and his renown to be for- 
gotten, differences which were nothing in his eyes, 
because in the eyes of God they are nothing, in order 
that he may draw them to his heart. 

Friendship, he says, makes equals : such is his doctrine. 
But beneath this apparent equality we see the parent 
whose bowels are moved, and a Christian adviser whose 
advice is obeyed ; a shepherd who follows with wakeful 
eye his beloved sheep, warns them of danger, urges them, 
gathers them, scolds them when needful, and when one 
of them is about to go astray, runs after it, and brings it 
back to the fold. 

What I admire above all is the ripeness and wisdom 
of his direction. I have pointed out in some of the 
other writings of Father Lacordaire generous illusions 
which prevented him from dealing sufficiently with facts. 
But here, as though in speaking to youth he was more 
cautious and more distrustful of his imagination, sound- 
ness, judiciousness, firmness or moderation are the order 
of the day. If he alludes to politics, it is only in a 
moderate and appropriate manner. It is simply in order 
to check the ardor of youth, to cry down passion and 
party spirit, and to raise souls above the troubles of life 
by directing their gaze to eternity. 

His teaching is purely doctrinal and Christian. You 
have estimated him at his proper worth, Rev. Sir, in 
your excellent introduction to this work dedicated to the 
youth of our country, and this introduction is a good work 
added to the former. 

You will find your reward in the good which the 



XVI 



publication has already done and which it will continue 
to do. 

Receive, Rev. Sir, the expression of my best wishes 
* Ferdinand Card. Donnet, 

Archbishop of Bordeaux. 



Archiepiscopal Palace of Besancon, 

May 9, 1863. 
Sir, 

Your pious project of publishing .Father Lacordaire's 
letters, and of thus laying open the secrets of his soul, 
the inspirations of his heart, and the active wisdom of his 
direction, is a benefit done to youth and a general advan- 
tage. 

Father Lacordaire's merits as an orator have been 
diversely appreciated, but there can be but one opinion 
touching his merits as a religious, and his influence as a 
director. 

The religious profession made a different man of him, 
who was only well known in his monastery, or outside 
his monastery in his private relations. Having seen 
him at Mattaincourt a few years ago, at the consecration 
of the church, I was struck with this change, I admired 
what grace had wrought in him in this respect, without 
detracting from his natural talent or his fire as an orator, 
and I said to myself: "God is wonderful in His Saints." 
I little thought that this beautiful flower w T as so soon to 
fall, and this grain of pure frankincense to be consumed 
in the fire of its ardent charity. 



XV11 



Pray receive, sir, the assurance of my very distin 
guished and affectionate sentiments. 

Cesarius Card. Mathieu, 
Archbishop of Besancon. 



Aechiepiscopal Palace of Tours, 

December 12, 1862. 
Reverend Sir, 

Before thanking you for having sent me the Letters of 
Father Lacordaire to Young Men, I was desirous of look- 
ing through this precious collection. These letters could 
in nowise increase my admiration of the illustrious 
Dominican's talent, but they have increased my esteem 
for his piety and his character. One sees that he really 
thirsted after souls, and that to gain them over to Jesus 
Christ he used all the high faculties with which God had 
gifted him. The perusal of this book has given me a 
very clear insight into the inmost life of Father Lacor- 
daire, whom I only knew by his writings and his preaching. 

The publication of these letters was very opportune. 
You could have done nothing more advantageous for 
youth, which will read them with fruit. It will be a 
kind of continuation of the apostleship of this illustrious 
religious, snatched away but too soon from a generation 
upon which his preaching exercised great influence. 

Receive, Rev. Sir, together with my thanks, the assur- 
ance of my high consideration. 

* J. HlPPOLYTE, 

Archbishop of Tours. 



XV111 



Episcopal Palace of Nancy and Toul, 
Nancy, December 26, 1862. 
Rev. Sir, 

You have been kind enough to send me the Letters 
of the Reverend Father Lacordaire, collected and pub- 
lished by you, with the idea doubtless that I should 
value your present very highly. I thank you for your 
kind attention, and am touched by your believing that 
I should, as indeed I do, sympathize with the ideas of so 
eminent a mind. 

What you have now published of the Rev. Father 
Lacordaire's works, Rev. Sir, reveals a whole vein of his 
soul unknown to many, a vein of great richness and 
beauty. You show the man to those who have known 
only the orator, and they will thank you for it. Youth, 
above all, must be grateful to you for having presented 
them with these pages, in which they will find, together with 
accents of manly tenderness, enlightened and strength- 
ening advice, and something too of those marvellous 
qualities which so long attracted and held them around 
the pulpit of Notre Dame. I am persuaded that this 
book will do good, and congratulate you on your share 
in its publication. With these congratulations and my 
thanks, pray receive, Dear Rev. Sir, the assurance of 
my best sentiments of esteem and affection. 

* G. Bp. of Nancy. 



xlx 



Episcopal Palace of Marseilles, 
Marseilles, Jan. 20, 1863. 

I cannot thank you too much. I am reading the 
Letters of Father Lacordaire which you so kindly sent 
me, and I find in them such good and beautiful things, 
that frequently my heart is quite overcome by them. 
You have added a very precious volume to the works 
of that man of faith and genius. We shall all be 
indebted to you for having done so. Pray receive my 
heartfelt thanks, as well as the expression of my affection- 
ate and devoted feelings for you. 

* Patrick, 

Bishop of Marseilles. 



Episcopal Palace of La Eochelle. 

La Eochelle, March 27, 1863. 
Deai Rev. Sir, 

I thank you for the letters of Father Lacordaire, which 
you were so kind as to send me, and I ought to beg your 
pardon for not having done so before. 

The perusal of this volume has greatly interested me ; 

certain pages in particular produced the sweetest emotion 

in me. " Words are a mirror," said a father of the 

Church, " and through words we see souls." This thought 

often struck me as I saw the beautiful soul of Father 

Lacordaire behind those intimate phrases, in which his 

heart showed itself fully in the confidences of friendship. 

At certain periods of mv life I have had dealings with 
2* 



XX 



Father Lacordaire, and I always honored the nobleness 
and loftiness of his character. One may differ with kim 
on many points, and this liberty in doubtful questions is 
one of the things which most strike us in the life and 
works of the most illustrious doctors of the Church. But 
uprightness of heart, strong and serene virtue, tender 
love for men, and eminently evangelical cast of character, 
are very rare qualities, which have always strongly at- 
tached me to him who was your friend. These virtues 
were, to borrow a saying of Origen, the odor of his soul, 
and I think it was difficult to come in contact with him 
without detecting its fragrance. 

The letters published by you introduce us into this 
sanctuary redolent of the sweetest and strongest of vir- 
tues. May the continued publication of this correspon- 
dence disclose to us more and more thoroughly the soul 
of this great monk, of whom Madam Swetchine said, 
" He will be known only by his letters." 

Pray receive, dear Rev. Sir, the expression of my af- 
fectionate and devoted sentiments. 

►J-< John Francis, 

Bishop of La Rochelle. 



Episcopal Palace of Carcassonne, 
Carcassonne, April 1, 1863. 
Rev. Sir, 

I had read with eagerness the first edition of the 
Letters of Father Lacordaire, which you have been kind 
enough to send me, and am not at all astonished at the 
great success they have had. 

You express a desire to hear my opinion about this 



XXI 



book ; I am very happy to do so, and thank you for the 
opportunity you give me of paying a fresh homage to 
the beautiful and pure genius of him who wrote these 
letters. 

The title of the collection reminds me of a thought to 
which I gave but feeble utterance over his hardly closed 
tomb ; it is that Father Lacordaire was, above all, the 
incomparable apostle of youth. God had given him that 
inimitable freshness of ideas, imagination, style and lan- 
guage which act irresistibly on young minds and young 
hearts. 

I discovered in these letters this same manner and 
charm. I found this same tender affection of the master 
for his pupils, of the father for his children, of the older 
and wiser friend for his young and inexperienced friends. 
Many masters, fathers, and friends, know how to love, 
but few know how to say so as usefully and as piously 
as he. 

It would have been a very great pity, had the precious 
* letters just edited, remained in the portfolios of those 
who received them. When a man has the genius of 
Father Lacordaire, he does not write to such^and such 
a person, but to all France, just as it is to all France 
that he speaks. 

Everyone, then, will thank you, Kev. Sir, for having 
made a common treasure of what has hitherto been the 
wealth of but too small a number of souls. 

But allow me at the same time to congratulate you 
sincerely upon the introduction which heads this work. 
Your long and intimate relations with Father Lacordaire 
may easilv be guessed from it. -Father Lacordaire is 
one of those .men whose friendship and daily intercourse 



XX11 



have stamped themselves upon those who enjoyed this 
happiness. This influence was inevitable, and no one 
was desirous of escaping it. I saw in your introduction 
traces of the contact of your friend Father Lacordaire 
the contact of his heart as well as of his mind. 



Episcopal Palace of Nantes. 

Agen, April 9, 1863. 
Rev. Sir, 

I follow you, as far as possible, in your works with 
great interest, and especially in the acts of your filial 
piety for Father Lacordaire. As I have been away from 
Nantes for several months endeavoring to recruit my 
health by a winter in the south of France, I was desirous 
of reading your collection of the Letters to Young Men, 
but was unaware you had been so extremely kind as to 
forward me a copy to Nantes. 

On receiving your letter I hastened to send for it. As 
yet I have been able to read but a few pages of it ; but I € 
beg you to add my meed of praise to that of all the 
worthy prelates you mention. I feel certain that a 
thorough perusal will only confirm me in the same 
opinion. 

I was extremely fond of Father Lacordaire. I sup- 
ported him at Notre Dame as far as lay in my power. 
As a bishop, I am singularly grateful to him for the 
change he has wrought in the present generation, and 
for having opened the way for a multitude of works and 
institutions which before him were simply out of the 
question. 

Continue the pious care you bestow upon his memory, 



XX111 



the sweet fragrance of which is not lost upon a multitude 
of young men. 

Do not let his writings be lost, which, contrary to an 
opinion which has gained some ground, are destined to 
do almost as much good as his preaching. Do not be 
discouraged by the injustice done to your illustrious 
friend — he has many more admirers than adversaries. 

I shall be happy to see you again some day, Rev. Sir, 
and in the meantime, beg you to receive my thanks, and 
the assurance of my most sincere devotedness. 

4- Alexander, 

Bishop of Nantes. 

Archiepiscopal Palace of Grenoble, 
La Ferrandiere, near Lyons, June 19, 1863. 

Reverend Sir, 

I am very tardy indeed in thanking you for the val- 
uable present you have made me, and in telling you 
what I think of the publication of the Letters of the Rev. 
Father Lacordaire to Young Men. It has been said that 
they showed a hitherto unknown side of his great soul. 
That is true as far as the public is concerned who knew 
but the exterior ; but when the interior had been entered, 
it was seen exactly as shown in these letters. 

It was given to Father Lacordaire to fulfil a fine mis- 
sion in regard to society, and specially of French youth ; 
the publication you have just issued, Rev. Sir, is the best 
way of continuing it and securing its fruitc. 

Receive, Rev. Sir, with the expression of my gratitude 
for the publication itself, the assurance of my most dis- 
tinguished sentiments. 

>$• M. A., Bishop of Grenoble. 



XXIV 



Episcopal Palace of Orleans. 

Orleans, May 8, 1863. 
My dear Friend, 

To say I have only just finished the Letters of Father 
Lacordaire is saying very little indeed; but it is the 
truth, and I assure you that in this negligence, or 
rather this sacrifice, I deserve more compassion than 
scolding. For the last three months I have been over 
head and ears in work, and have not had for intellec- 
tual enjoyment or the joys of the heart a single hour. 
I have not even always had time to do what I look upon 
as my duty. 

In short, I was only able to complete my perusal of 
these letters in my pastoral visit, while going from one 
village to another. 

But I have at last read them, and I may indeed say 
that they have solaced me, charmed me, sometimes 
astonished, and frequently enraptured me. 

I say astonished me ; for this volume reveals a whole 
vein in the nature of Father Lacordaire, not sufficiently 
known, a vein of admirable richness, depth, and tender- 
ness. 

I said that Father Lacordaire's, as well as Father de 
Ravignan's, was a great soul. These letters add to my 
admiration, because they show us this soul in a new 
light, with a fresh charm and fresh greatness. 

It is impossible to come upon a more genuine nature, 
one more independent and subject to God, a nobler or 
more consistent life, a more affectionate heart, or one 
more firm even in its tenderest affections. And what 



XXV 



more even than his very talent and eloquence explains 
to me his wonderful power of doing good, is that spirit 
of Christian mortification and efficacious penance, that 
ardent love of our Lord, that deep devotion to His cross 
and passion. This is what made Father Lacordaire a 
holy Monk, worthy of becoming the restorer and reformer 
of a great order. 

I should like to see your book in the hands of all the 
young men I have known and loved, or rather in the 
hands of all Christian young men, in order that they 
may feel the value of their faith ; and also in the hands 
of, all those who have not yet the happiness to believe, 
in order that they may get a glimpse of the joy there is 
in purity of heart, and what safety the human mind 
enjoys, despite the weakness arising from its natural 
fickleness, in the unvarying firmness of the Catholic 
Creed. 

Keceive, then, my dear friend, all my congratulations 
upon a publication which does such honor to the memory 
you venerate, and which may be so useful. 

Yours sincerely in Christ, 
* Felix, 

Bishop of Orleans. 



CONTENTS. 



PA<SB 

God's Hour ...... 33 

Farewell to the World .... 35 

The Seminary of St. Sulpice. The Church and Progress 36 
Protestantism and Rationalism . . . .39 

Fragments of a Rule of Life ... 43 

Upon Sadness . . . . . .45 

Youth. The Gift of Lovingness ... 47 

Upon Lent « . . . . .49 

On the Church .... 52 

A Conversion . . . . . .59 

La Quercia. An Expectant and Trustful Soul . 63 

The Signs of the Times. The Writer's Task. The Rule 
of St. Dominic . . . . . .66 

The Dignity of the Christian ... 70 

To a Young Man on the Death of his Father . . 72 

Prayer. Penance. The Reading of the Scriptures 73 

The Age of Preparation . . . . .77 

Prayer and Reading ..... 79 

Humility ....... 81 

On Education. Advice to a Young Tutor . . 83 

Upon the Conversion of a Soul from Protestantism to 

Catholicism, . . , . . .87 

3 ( xxvii ) 



xxviii CONTENTS. 

PAGB 

Love and Deception ..... 90 

Upon the Union of Catholics for the Defence of Keligious 
Liberty . . . . . .92 

A Specimen of Monastic Inveigling . . 93 

Obstacles in the Way of a Vocation. Patience and Peace 95 
Mortification and Prayer . . . . .97 

Upon Gratitude for Good done in the Spiritual Order 98 

Same Subject . . . . . . 99 

Obedience and Liberty. Advice touching Education 100 

Pious Beading. Works of Penance . . . 101 

Female Society ..... 104 

The Wings of Kest. The Weakness of the Heart . 105 

The Confidential Communications of a Friend . 108 

The Duties of the Citizen .... 112 

The Future of France and the Christian Spirit . 113 
Our Sanctification to be worked out where we are, and 

not elsewhere ...... 116 

London. The Multitude of Pious Societies . 118 

England and the University of Oxford . . . 121 

Advice to a Friend. Perils and Hopes . . 125 

Moderation in Work. Flavigny , . . 129 

Upon the Conduct of Divine Providence . . 132 
Against Falling Off in the Accomplishment of Christian 

Duties ....... 135 

Upon Forgetfulness of the Wcrld . . . 137 

Community Life ...... 139 

Upon Detachment of Heart . . . 140 

Upon Steadfastness in Conviction . . . 143 
Saint Maximin's and Sainte-Beaume. All for God's 

(Hory « 145 



CONTENTS. xxix 

PAGE 

Advice to a Young Preacher .. . . . 148 
The Grande-Chartreuse. Bad Books. Separation from 

Friends 149 

To rejoice in Success for God's Sake. Of the Purity of 

the Religious Vocation .... 153 

Frederic Ozanam. The Ere Nouvelle . . 155 

Upon Friendship ...... 157 

Intimate Communications. The Beautiful and True. 

Drinkable Gold 162 

Melancholy. The Crimean War. The Death of M. de 

la Mennais ...... 165 

Fragments of Letters of Father Lacordaire, touching M. 

de la Mennais " . . . . 170 

Obedience. M. de la Mennais .... 176 

Poverty and Greatness .... 178 

Equality in Friendship ..... 179 

The Memory of Frederic Ozanam . . . 181 
The Ecclesiastical Cut of the Hair. The Priest in the 

World 184 

The Beginnings of a Religious Life . . . 188 

The School of Soreze. The Thought of Death . . 191 

A Monk on Horseback. Souls the Final Enjoyment 195 

Upon Hopes in Sickness ..... 198 

Ozanani's Works ..... 201 

Pseudonyms. Literary Criticism. Moderation in Study 203 
Conduct of a Young Ecclesiastic in Time of Revolution. 

The Virtue of Silence . . . . .207 

Sickness in Exile. The Gift of Faith . . 209 
God's Will . , . . . .211 

On Kindness and Firmness in Education , , 212 



xxx CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Sufficient for the Day is the Evil thereof . . 214 

Party Violence. Peace in God . . . 216 

" Nolite Judicare." Evangelical Sweetness . . 219 
Attention to Health. Five Propositions relative to the 

French Academy ..... 221 

Upon the Death of a Soreze Pupil . . . 223 

Life in the Future ..... 225 
To a Pupil of the School of Soreze . . .227 

Against Ennui and Sadness. To a Pupil of Soreze 228 

A dvice to a Young Man upon Paris Life . . 229 

Education. Protestantism . . . . 231 

Upon Father de Ravignan .... 233 

Literary Masterpieces. To a Pupil of Soreze . 235 

Upon the Choice of a Friend .... 236 

The Joys of a Pure Conscience . . . 237 

Poetry upon the Death of Christ . . . 238 

The two Spirits ..... 239 

Upon the Death of a Christian Young Man . . 240 

Friendly Works. Soreze again . . . 243 

Flowers, Fruits, and Scholars .... 245 

To the Novices of the Order of St. Dominic . 246 
Upon the Passions of Youth. A Soul between God and 

the Abyss ...... 247 

Encouragement in the Fight . . . 250 

Upon the First Victories of Chastity . . . 252 

On Friendship in Jesus Christ . . . 253 

On Fidelity in Friendship .... 255 

Italian Independence and the Temporal Sovereignty of 

the Pope 257 

Upon his Candidateship for the French Academy f 259 



CONTENTS. xxxi 

FAOS 

Upon Detachment from Honors . . . 262 

The Monastery of San-Esteban at Salamanca . . 265 

Duties towards Servants .... 266 

Upon Pantheism ...... 269 

Bad Company ..... 271 

Practices of Christian Life. To a Pupil of Soreze . 272 

Upon Polemics ..... 273 

The Senses. The Occasion .... 275 

Upon the Perils of Youth .... 278 

Or> the "Vocation to the Religious Life . . . 280 

A Word about Italy ..... 281 

Same Subject . . . . . .282 

A Soul hesitating between God and Evil. "Warnings, 

Menaces, Entreaties .... 283 

On Perseverance in Christian Ways . . . 287 

Christianity and Democracy . . 289 
3* 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 



i. 

Paris, May 11, 1824. 
My dear Friend, 

ALL that I have to tell you might be said in very 
few words, and yet I feel I should like to write a 
long letter to you. I am giving up the bar : we shall 
never meet again there. Our dreams of the last five 
years will never be realized. I am going to enter the 
seminary of St. Sulpice to-morrow. Only yesterday I 
was fall of worldly fancies, although religion had 
already some share in my thoughts : glory was still 
my day-dream. To-day my hopes are higher, and I 
covet here below nothing but obscurity and peace. I 
am very much changed, and I assure, you I cannot 
say how it has come about. When I look at the 
working of my mind during the last five 3~ears, my 
starting-point, the phases through which rny mind 

(33) 



34 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

has passed, and the final result of this long and diffi- 
cult process, I am myself astounded, and feel impelled 
to adore the hand of God. All this, my friend, is 
realized thoroughly by him alone who has forsaken 
error for truth, who has his previous ideas well before 
him, sees the connection between them, as well as the 
oddity of their combinations, their gradual develop- 
ment, and compares them at the different stages of his 
conviction. A really sublime moment is that when 
the last ray of light breaks in upon the soul, and 
marshals into a single group all the scattered discon- 
nected truths there. There is such a vast difference 
between the moment which follows, and the moment 
which precedes this one, between what we were 
before, and what we are after, that the word grace 
has been invented to convey the idea of this magic 
stroke, of this light from on high. I fancy I see a 
man groping his way blindfolded; the bandage is 
gradually withdrawn ; he has a glimmering of the 
daylight, and at the moment when the handkerchief 
falls, he stands in the broad sunlight. 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 35 



II. 

gjpxtwtW to the WLn\&. 

Seminary of Issy, June, 1824. 

My old and deae Colleague,* 

JUST two or three lines in a handwriting perhaps 
unfamiliar to you, from one to whom you never 
appeared indifferent. But very lately I received from 
several quarters proofs of your kind remembrance, 
and of the interest you take in me. I am glad your 
friendship has followed with interest a step which in 
its motives and its results will have so great an influ- 
ence upon my life. You saw me vacillating between 
error and truth, loving them equally because unable 
to distinguish the one from the other; the hour 
marked out by God for my enlightenment has come : 
He has shown me the powerlessness of reason, and 
the necessity of faith. 

Being thus drawn closer to you by my religious 
convictions, I have the happiness to find your coun- 
terpart in a brother whom I regret not having known 
sooner. I feel, too, that I am parting with you by 

* "Written to a young barrister. 



36 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

giving up the profession which decides your future, 
and in which people say you have already made way ; 
but if your success no longer urges me to emulation, 
if I no longer dream of the trophies of Miltiades in 
order to become a Themistocles, believe me, they will 
always be dear to me, and news of your glory always 
gratifying. 

Adieu, my dear friend, don't lose sight of me: 
come sometimes in spirit to the desert: I embrace 
you with all my heart. 



III. 

©he J^minarg ajf £t. £uljta.— ®he (purrh 

Seminary of Issy, 1825. 

¥OU would never guess one of my delights : it is 
to begin my youth over again ; I mean the age 
between childhood and youth, with the moral strength 
belonging to a more advanced age. At college we 
are still too much of children : we cannot form a cor- 
rect estimate of men and things ; our notions are too 
few to enable us to choose friends properly, and bind 
them to us by strong ties. The higher stages of 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 87 

friendship are unknown to such weak souls, to such 
untutored minds. And then in the world we are not 
in a position to form any very strong ties : whether it 
be that men do not live there in such intimacy, or 
that interest and self-love glide into what seem the 
purest unions, or that the hearkfeels less at ease amid 
the noise and bustle of society. Friendship has a 
better field among a hundred and forty young men 
who are constantly seeing one another, whose notions 
and feelings are similar^ and who are almost all like 
chosen flowers transplanted into solitude. I take a 
pleasure in being liked, in keeping up in the semi- 
nary something of the amenity of the world, a little 
of the polish of society. I am more simple, more 
communicative, more affable than I was : rid of that 
love of display which entered perhaps into my com- 
position : not anxious about my future, with which I 
am satisfied whatever it may be : dreaming of poverty 
as I used once to do of wealth ; I live quietly with 

my fellow-students and myself. 

I am not afraid, as a believer, of those ideas of 
order, justice, strong and lawful liberty, which were 
my first conquests. Christianity is not a law of bond- 
age ; and if it respect the hand of God which some- 
times raises up tyrants, it draws up where obedience 
degenerates into guilty cowardice. It has not for- 



38 LETTERS TO YO UNG MEN. 

gotten that its children were free at a time when the 
world was groaning in fetters under a series of brutal 
emperors, and that they had formed beneath the 
earth* a society which spoke of humanity under the 
palace of Nero. Is it not the Church which has 
introduced into our institutions a spirit of mildness 
and harmony unknown to antiquity ? It is religion 
which has made modern Europe what she is by its 
stability amid the ruin of nations, by adapting itself 
to circumstances, to times, and places, without ever 
abating an iota of its unshaken principles. The 
Church had the words reason and liberty on her lips 
when the inalienable rights of the human race were 
threatened with shipwreck. 

She preached faith and obedience when she saw 
mental and moral debauch pave the way for a revolu- 
tion which was to destroy liberty by anarchy, and 
reason by the very altars raised to it. Admirable 
wisdom, which can adapt itself to all the require- 
ments of civilization, which at one time quickens, at 
another slackens the progress of ages, in order to 
keep them to that wise mean where peace and virtue 
are found, and from which human things deviate by 
an inevitable ebb and flow ! power wonderful in the 
variety of its action : firm and enduring in power and 
conscience, snatching nations from tyranny by liberty, 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 80 

from anarchy by power, and from two opposite 
extremes leading them to the same point. 



IV. 

Protestantism m\& Ijtotioitalfem. 

Rome. January 10, 1837. 

I GOT your letter very late, my dear friend. I 
thank you for all the tokens of confidence it con- 
tains, and am very desirous to testify my appreciation 
of them. It is unfortunate we cannot see one another 
for a short time, and chat together with open heart ; 
letters are always very cold and short when compared 
with conversation, and sometimes mutual pain may 
be unintentionally given in them. A look tells us 
what to unsay or explain, whilst, when a letter is 
once gone, the writer is not at hand to explain it to 
the friend who receives it. I handled you roughly 
in my first, because you did not seem to me child- 
like enough, and also because that is the best way 
of gaining possession of a soul sincerely desirous 
of being guided. You are aware that when postu- 
lants presented themselves at the gates of the old 
monasteries to give themselves to God, they fre- 
quently met with a reception calculated to disgust 



40 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

them, iii order that this severity might show whether 
the soul of the postulant was already humble, and 
up to the practice of the virtues it aspired to. "We 
are too fond of being flattered, even by our friends : 
I am then glad you have forgiven me the roughness 
of my first embrace, and that you came back to the 
charge kind and confiding. 

• Your picture of Germany does not surprise me 
much. By severing itself from Catholic unity, it 
lost the very fountain-head of great ideas. Those 
countries which are still Catholic, whether under a 
Protestant government or independent, catch some- 
thing of the schismatical spirit with which they are 
in perpetual contact, and we may say that Protestant- 
ism is the one souvenir of all Germany, her blood, her 
life. France, on the contrary, by remaining Catholic, 
has raised herself to a position, fraught indeed with 
some difficulties, but which will sooner or later show 
its power. Amongst the men whom you mention as 
the latest glories of Germany, there are at least two 
who have been evil geniuses. 

J allow that great intellectual criminals ^may have 
glorious names, but this glory is of an order disallowed 
by Christian hearts. I should like you to get at 
once into the habit of scorning the greatest renown 
when purchased by a pernicious influence, and never 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 41 

to value either in the author or the man of action 
anything but the good and the true. To write is to 
act. Stubborn persistence in writing what is false is 
a crime deserving of the most shameful punishment, 
the very success of which does but increase its guilt. 
The Gospel of Jesus Christ changed the world: 
whoever does not write in conformity with the Gos- 
pel is the enemy of God and man, much more so than 
the frail creature which simply yields to its passions. 
Sinful weakness deserves compassion, but the pride 
which attacks truth, inspires no kind feeling. 

As to Vico, of whom, you also speak to me, his 
historical system, as far as I know it, tends to destroy 
the certitude of facts and traditions ; he makes myths 
and allegories of all events around which time has 
thrown a haze, and he is consequently false and 
dangerous. 

Let me beg of you, my dear friend, not to let your- 
self be imposed upon by modern writings. They are 
nearly all pride-stricken, infected with sensualism, 
doubts, and prophecies, remarkable only for the bold- 
ness of the poets who indulge in them. Study the 
ancients closely. The Pagans themselves, such as 
Plato, Plutarch, Cicero, and many others, are prefer- 
able a thousand times over to the great mass of our 
modern writers; they were religious men, full of 



42 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

respect for tradition, who looked only for the perfect- 
ing of man in his daily intercourse with the Divinity. 
The others are more or less open enemies of Jesus 
Christ, that is of the sublime work which has spread 
over the earth the spirit of penance and humility : 
the work which the corrupted heart of man will never 
forgive Christianity, and which has hurried so many 
great modern minds into impiety, whilst those of 
ancient times cherished so deep a reverence for religion. 
For the last three or four centuries literature has been 
in a state of revolt against the truth. Even the good, 
weakened in their deepest convictions by the contact 
of error, have put forward false or fatal opinions in 
their best works. Consequently, my dear friend, 
you must be very choice in your reading. 

I shall be staying here some time longer ; indeed, 
I do not know when I shall leave ; if you were coming 
some day, that would give me a little patience. I 
want to see and embrace you. Adieu, my dear friend, 
pray for me, love me a little, and be convinced that 
the communications of your heart will always be 
welcome. 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 43 

V. 

Jfraptente of a |toU of %x\t. 

Rome, January 11, 1837. 
My dear Friend, 

I SEND you the rule of life I promised you. You 
are already so thoroughly religious that I need 
not insist upon your following this rule I have 
marked out for you. It is already in your heart, and 
it is less as a remainder of your resolutions that I 
send it, than a proof of the share you have in all my 
thoughts. 

I beg of you to be faithful to your affection for me, 
so necessary to my happiness. Mine is more than 
yours already : it would be beyond my power to with- 
draw it or take from its depth. You will be ever 
clasped to my bosom as a son and a friend. 

Adieu. 

RULE. 

Spend a fair share of every day upon the 

serious occupations of your state, and look upon this 

work as one of your first duties, and as the personal 

accomplishment of that sentence passed by God upon 

our first father. In the sweat of thy brow shalt thoti 

eat thy bread. 
4* 



44 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

As to the lawful pleasures of the mind, the heart, 
or the senses, indulge in them with gratitude and 
moderation, drawing up sometimes in order to punish 
yourself, without waiting to be forced to do so by 
necessity. 

Bear constantly in mind that we have two great 
vices to beat down and destroy, pride and sensual- 
ity ; and two great virtues to acquire, humility and 
penance. 

Raise from time to time your heart to God, and 
think upon the painful passion of our Lord, in order 
to neutralize by the contemplation of His mangled 
and bleeding body the involuntary impression pro- 
duced upon you by the objects you are condemned to 
see. 

Choose some poor person, and relieve him regu- 
larly according to your means, and look upon him as 
Jesus Christ Himself, visit him, talk to him, and if 
you -have courage enough, kiss his clothes or his feet 
sometimes. 

Fasten yourself in spirit to His cross, hand your- 
self over to the executioner: to dwell upon the 
thought of chastisement, and undergo it mentally, is 
a suffering in itself. The martyrs had immolated 
themselves a hundred times in their hearts before 
they were sacrificed in reality. 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 46 

Think too of the number of slaves and poor who 
get scarcely anything but a little bad bread moist- 
ened with their tears and even with their blood. 

Endeavor to be good, amiable, simple in your deal- 
ings with every one, and do not consider the life of a 
Christian as necessarily one of moroseness and mel- 
ancholy. Saint Paul is continually saying to the 
faithful, rejoice! The real Christian is filled with 
interior joy even in the midst of sufferings : he bears 
his cross good-humoredly ; martyrdom and oppro- 
brium don't affect his spirits ; he offers his body to 
be afflicted as Providence sees fit without losing his 
serenity; he turns into roses chains, hunger, thirst, 
rags, fire, scourges, the sword, death. He loves and 
is loved, what more does he need? 



VI. 

Rome, August 19, 1837. 
My dear Friend, 

YOU know how much attached I am to you. I 
learn with grief that you are sad and taciturn. 
5t is quite true that, humanly speaking, you have 



46 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

had a very unfortunate year : but, on the other hand, 
you have reason for consolation. Be careful, my 
dear friend, not to give way to gloomy sadness, which 
would gradually ruin you to no purpose. Religion 
is not a yoke of terror : she is all love and confidence 
to her real children. If our passions give us trouble, 
we must look upon them gently, as proofs of our 
frailty, but like children who are not frightened at 
their littleness when by the side of their father. 
Melancholy is a fashion we must fight down. I too 
know what it is. But the greater the influence of 
God upon my soul became, the less hold melancholy 
had over me. I should be very much distressed to 
think that you are not happy and contented. Oh! 
my dear friend, don't afflict me with the thought that 
you are unhappy. You have been so bountifully 
endowed by Providence that you can easily muster 
up courage to bear with your own defects, and with 
the inevitable shortcomings of everything human. 
You are young, full of health, of first-rate talent, 
good and amiable. You only want to know what 
you really are in order to become proud and vain. 
If the lightning of truth has struck you, it is not for 
your destruction : but to raise you by doing away 
with your natural weaknesses. 

I shall be leaving Eome, if possible, on the 15th 



LETTERS TO YO UNG MEN. 47 

of September. I should be really delighted to meet 
you once again on Italian soil. Pray that this may 
come about, and love me ever from the bottom of 
your heart as I do you. 



VII. 

goutlt. — Wi\t <SiJ[t of lutmnpess. 

Metz, January 2, 1838. 
My dear Friend, 

I HAVE heard of you in a letter from your 
respected mother, which was sent to Rome and 
then came back to France. I read it with joy, like 
a letter from a friend about whom one is uneasy. 
You have had a hard year's work, you have been ill, 
you have tended the sick, you have travelled alone, 
seen brilliant society, and I am told that in all these 
circumstances you have been good-natured, which 
gives me real pleasure. Tell me how old you are ; I 
don't remember your ever having done so. Youth 
is a lovely time of life. As children we have not 
enough sensibility nor knowledge of things : nothing 
is deep. In our prime we know too much, and no 
longer please so much ; the heart has less calls upon 



48 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

it and is more wary, and neither gives nor receives so 
fully. But between twenty and thirty, what vigor, 
what fulness ! We love and are loved so quickly. I 
should like to know if you are affectionate, if you feel 
the value of another soul, if affection is your great 
leaning. Every man has one predominant bent, 
which forms the heart of all the others. In some it 
is vanity, that chilling sentiment which makes people 
think of nothing but show, which loves to be sur- 
rounded by flatterers, to be looked at. In others it 
is the lust of power, a stern passion which would 
have all men slaves. The loving heart lives chiefly 
within itself, not in selfishness, but in that holy 
seclusion in which we require but one other being, 
where its memory suffices to fill up a day, where we 
don't trouble ourselves about the crowd and its ideas, 
where the exterior goes for nothing. This is the pas- 
sion of all great and noble souls. I hope it may be 
yours ; not that it is unattended by great dangers — 
for where are there not dangers ? — but because the 
reefs once passed, we taste the only true consolation 
here below. True love is pure : it is of the heart and 
not of the senses. The life of the senses wanes, falls 
away ; and no one is such a stranger to love as a 
debauchee. The purer the heart, the more it is puri- 
fied and ennobled by the love of God, and the more 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 49 

capable it is of real and sterling love. I am sure, 
my dear friend, that you will always keep the pure 
and calm region in which a fondness for creatures is 
sanctified by the love of God, and that you will not 
give way to unmanly affections, the end of which is 
an empty gratification of the senses, fleeting and 
bitter as smoke. 

Let me tell you, in short, that I am at Metz, a 
strong and large town, where I am giving conferences 
upon religion. After Easter I shall go to Liege and 
Brussels for a few days, thence to a Benedictine abbey 
to pass the summer. I hope to hear from you before 
then. I embrace you tenderly, although from afar. 
Present my respectful compliments to your mother, 
and give me a share in the affection you bear her. 



VIII. 

®pn %zxA. 

Metz, Feb. 19, 1838. 

LENT is at hand, and I owe it to my tender affec- 
tion for you to give you a few explanations upon 
this time set aside for penance. You yourself asked 
me to do so, consequently I am after all only obeying 
you. 



60 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

Penance is, as you are aware, one of the chief vir- 
tues of the Christian. It is made up of humility of 
heart, which sees the enormity of our faults, and our 
natural corruption, and of the mortification of the 
body, which both humbles the mind, and curbs the 
bad passions of which the flesh is the source. 

If the Christian always practised real and coura- 
geous penance he would be a saint. But the Chris- 
tian is weak : he lives in the midst of the world, he 
leads like others a soft and easy, even when not a 
criminal life. This is why the Church has instituted, 
or rather had marked out by apostolic tradition, a 
particular time for penance. This is the period pre- 
ceding the time when we commemorate the passion 
and resurrection of the Saviour. It consists of but 
forty days, signified by the term Quadragesima. 

On Ash- Wednesday the faithful repair to the 
church, cast themselves at the feet of the priest, who 
makes the sign of the cross on their foreheads with 
ashes, saying : Remember, man, thou art but dust, 
and unto dust thou shalt return ! 

Fasting is a penance laid upon the faithful for the 
whole of Lent with the exception of Sunday. Fast- 
ing, in the strictest sense of the term, means taking 
one meal a day after midday, and this made up of 
nothing very substantial, vegetables and fish. This 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 61 

penance, which is nothing out of the way, which the 
ancient philosophers recommended to their disciples, 
is very useful because it weakens the body, curbs our 
intemperance, and makes us much fitter for prayer 
and meditation. By food man partakes of the low- 
est creatures, of the flesh and blood of brutes : by 
fasting he rises above bodily wants, and yields to 
them only in what is absolutely necessary. 

Go to confession at the beginning of Lent as a 
preparation for it, and again shortly before Easter, in 
order to fit you for communion the following day. 
At confession do not consider the man, but God who 
humbled himself for your salvation so far as to die 
like an outcast and a culprit. Doubtless it is a con- 
solation to kneel at the feet of a priest one reveres 
and loves, but even suppose We don't know him, we 
must see Jesus Christ in him, and confess interiorly 
that we have deserved public humiliation, and not 
simply secret ones. Open your soul to your confessor, 
do whatever penance he imposes on you without ask- 
ing for any particular one, and be persuaded that a 
well spent Lent will be a very meritorious work of 
expiation. 

Just consider how incapable you are of great things, 

and don't despise little ones. 
5 



52 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 



IX. 

©n t\u (purrit. 

Abbey of Solesmes, June 24, 1838. 
My dear Friend, 

I WAS expecting with some impatience to hear 
from you, for I cannot do without you. Your 
letter dropped in exactly on the feast of my patron, 
St. John the Baptist. I thanked God for having sent 
me so sweet a present on that day. Your letter is 
the reflex of all the good and amiable qualities God 
has given you, as well as of a sound mind which sees 
difficulties, but can work out solutions. 

This is the shortest road to truth. Many minds 
see rhe weak point of the true; this comes from its 
immense disproportion with our faculties. The num- 
ber of those who see its strong side is less ; this comes 
of the connection between all that goes to make it up. 
Truth is an infinite web which bears us up. Chil- 
dren as we are, we can neither measure nor tear it. 
The objection that troubles you is one touching the 
Unity of the Church. You have understood, my 
very dear friend, that unity is the characteristic mark 
of truth. ■ Cicero understood and said so before you. 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 63 

The phrase which embodied the remark of that great 
man is what most powerfully urged Queen Christina 
of Sweden to become a Catholic. 

You will tell me that unity of mind, the chief of 
all, can only exist in the Church inasmuch as the 
Church is infallible, and that Catholics themselves 
do not agree with regard to the seat of infallibility in 
the Church. 

Were this the case you would be right in maintain- 
ing that unity in the Catholic Church is an impossi- 
bility, since this infallibility itself is a subject of 
division. Such however is not the case, and I will 
give you a convincing proof of it : it is that as a 
fact unity does exist in the Catholic Church, and that 
consequently Catholics know well and with certainty 
where resides infallibility. All know well, all be- 
lieve, all are obliged to believe, unless they are de- 
sirous of becoming schismatics and heretics, that the 
bishops, with the Pope at their head, are infallible in 
matters of faith and morals. 

Outside this dogma each one is free to adopt his 
own opinion. For you must remember, my dear 
friend, that a vast number of questions are not yet 
denned by Catholic dogma, and are controverted 
matters. The Church, enlightened by the word of 
Jesus Christ, of the apostles and prophets, and as- 



64 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

sisted by the Holy Ghost, holds a certain number of 
necessary truths which she propounds and defends as 
the heritage of the human race. They are her treas- 
ure : they are the common treasure. AVoe to him 
who lays hands upon them ! As to the rest, which 
are more or less bound up with these necessary truths, 
they are open to discussion. Thus with regard to 
infallibility, the Church affirms as part of her creed, 
that the bishops, icith the Pope at their head, are infal- 
lible in matters of faith and morals. 

Outside this truth there is a conflict of opinions. 
Some, like the Count de Maistre, maintain that the 
Pope himself, in his capacity of Pope, speaking doc- 
trinally to the whole Church, according to the duty 
of his charge, is infallible ; since otherwise, if he could 
teach error, one could not imagine how the Holy See 
is the foundation on which the Church is built. 
Others do not allow this consequence, and think that 
the decrees of the Sovereign Pontiff are only irref ami- 
able or infallible, inasmuch as the bishops accept them 
either tacitly or expressly. This is a family discus- 
sion, which is no bar to unity, since all Catholics 
submit as soon as the Pope and the bishops have spohen. 
If you were to read our big theology books, you 
would see these two classes of ideas at every turn. 
The one class is necessary, the other free : the one 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 65 

forming part of the Catholic creed, the other not 
forming part of it, although not devoid of interest 
and having sometimes very grave consequences. 

You will perhaps ask why God has left so many 
questions open to discussion. You might as well ask 
why God has not revealed everything. Now God 
has revealed the principles in order to serve as foun- 
dations; He has not done exactly the same with the 
consequences, in order to give our liberty play, like 
a mother who holds her child up by leading strings, 
but is delighted to see him try and walk like a man. 
You must bear in mind too, that this infallibility 
may, at any moment, transfer ideas from the realm 
of opinion to that of dogma, and consequently from 
the free to the necessary order. A simple decision 
of the Church works this change, and she never with- 
holds that decision from the human race in case of 
need. Seated in the midst of minds, unchangeable 
like God whose Spirit she has, the Church diffuses in 
a wonderful manner light and heat, drawing to her- 
self every soul of good will, judging human ideas by 
the standard of divine ones, and welding together in 
admirable peace the very differences she allows to 
exist among her children. 

Their liberty gives her no uneasiness, for she 
knows on the one hand, the point at which she will 

6* 



66 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

check them, and on the other she is certain they will 
stop at her bidding. It is much the same kind of 
feeling as that of God about the ocean. On the con- 
trary, Protestant liberty recognizes no bounds, and is 
destructive of all unity. The Protestant has not a 
single dogma to serve as a centre of unity or a rally- 
ing point. He is his own unity : in other words, his 
unity is something essentially variable, a cloud, a 
dew-drop. His individuality itself does not consti- 
tute unity : he is alone without the possibility of 
being one; God is one without being able to be alone, 
and His Church in like manner. We will hold over 
the different incidental points arising out of the chief 
objection for our subsequent conversations. These 
details would take too long. Not that I am disin- 
clined to talk at length with you, my dear friend ; 
God knows it does not tire me : your candor does 
quite the contrary. But, as you say, everything must 
have an end, even that to which we are most inclined, 
and moreover I think you yourself will now be able 
to solve the secondary difficulties. 

I come now to your misgivings touching the salva- 
tion of one who loved you so tenderly, and who on 
her deathbed pronounced those beautiful and Chris- 
tian words to which in great part we may reasonably 
attribute your conversion to the Catholic faith. God 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 67 

has, like yourself, laid these words up in His heart, 
and to them I undoubtedly owe the happiness of 
knowing and loving you. Now, why should you fear 

that the Catholic Church would inspire afflicting 
thoughts touching your loving Mother ? God alone 
judges man ; He alone, at the hour of death, weighs 
his life; He it is who puts into the scales what he 
knew and what he did not, what he has done, and 
what he might have done, what He gave him, and 
what He withheld, good and evil, insuperable obsta- 
cles, and, like a merciful Master, He fills up the 
measure of love which saves, there where there is love 
enough to deserve an increase. Possibly the grace 
which is pressing you is but a superabundance of that 
given your mother when she prayed for you. Look 
upon her as the cause of your conversion. Be con- 
vinced you are fulfilling her last wish : — "I feel 
assured that the memory of my tender love for my 
dear son will suffice to keep him virtuous, and to 
make him cling to the Lord, the source of all grace 
and all virtue." 

There is much more that I could say ! Do not 
suppose your long letters will tire me ; you cannot 
let me have them too long. Treat me just like you 
would an old friend of your own age. I am not 
uneasy about the objections which suggest themselves 



Wt 



58 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

to your mind, I know too well the hold God has 
taken of your soul to look upon them as anything 
else but a course of gymnastics which you want to 
strengthen you in truth. 

I think the conclusion of M. de Maistre's Pape 
will please you better than the opening, which is 
slightly too scholastic a controversy, and which is 
unsuited to your present state of mind. There is no 
One book which has not the disadvantage of not being 
written specially for us. The living word, issuing 
from a soul which understands ours, is much more 
powerful. I am always uneasy when I recommend 
books, because scarcely any single book will be pre- 
cisely suited to any one particular man. The soul, 
on the contrary, requires but a moment to read into 
another, and give her what she wants. I am conse- 
quently yearning for the moment when we shall 
again take up our conversations. I shall be in 
Paris on the 18th of July; I shall immediately closet 
myself with you, and, by God's grace, finish the work 
already begun. 

Pray fervently and read carefully every day, and 
write me long letters. Don't call me, My dear Sir, 
in your letters, but, My dear Friend, for I am very 
fond of you. I not only allow, but I order you to 
treat me as your heart may suggest. Adieu, my 
dear friend, I press you to my heart. 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 69 



X. 

Bologna, September 19, 1838. 

I GOT your letter, my dear friend, just as I was 
leaving Rome ; thus, the great fear I was in of 
not hearing from you before leaving, was dispelled. 
Had I gone without hearing from you, it would have 
been a heavy penance to me. God did not so will it, 
and I thank Him for it from the bottom of my 
heart. Although I have had a friend with me for 
the last few days, you cannot imagine the sadness 
that lays hold of me when I have to leave a place 
where I have taken root, and have to go alone from 
inn to inn without ever meeting a familiar face, or 
hearing a kindly word. I have been tied down to a 
life of solitude for years together, and to-day I am 
really astonished how I managed it, loneliness is such 
a punishment to me! I got to Bologna yesterday 
morning ; it is a large and beautiful city. My only 
aim in visiting it was to see the body of St. Dominic, 
which is here. To-morrow I start for Milan, and 
almost at every step I whisper to myself, that I am 



60 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

nearing you. You fill my solitude ; this little room, 
where I am waited on like a lord for my money, and 
where, meals over, I am left as solitary as an owl. I 
visit the churches. Many of them are very fine ; but 
nothing so tires me as seeing too many fine things at 
once. Admiration weighs down, but does not move. 
Two hours of this kind of walking undo me terribly. 
And yet how much of it have I done in my life ! 
St. Dominic's tomb is of white marble, not in the 
present style, not colossal, in a church at the other 
end of the town, in a kind of desert. 

There St. Dominic breathed his last : numbers of 
monks have dwelt there, and the greatest men from 
different quarters of the world have met there. To- 
day the monastery is all but deserted ; what is tenanted, 
is filled in great part by an Austrian regiment : the 
troopers drink, smoke, and swear, where saints used 
to fast, pray, and write. To-morrow I shall say Mass 
over the body of St. Dominic, and I will pray to 
God to keep you good and pious. 

Your letter rejoiced and touched me. I think 
you love me, for you lay aside pride with me, and 
you tell me your faults. Your friends were right in 
getting angry with you. Nothing wounds a friend 
like a want of confidence. What is friendship but 
the union of two souls ? If there is no confidence. 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 61 

where is the union ? The more important the move- 
ment which changed your heart, the greater their 
right to know it, to advise you, to encourage, # and 
even to check you. 

You might possibly have had a few struggles more, 
and then the victory over death and error would 
have been more glorious, and less open to misinterpre- 
tation. I am not at all of opinion that a natural 
liking you took to me, was the cause of your conver- 
sion. Your coming to me shows clearly that you 
were converted before even seeing me. God had sent 
down upon you that secret flame which I so well 
know from my own experience, and that of many 
others ; a flame of which the possessor is unconscious, 
and which awaits but a breath in order to consume 
the "old man" with his wretched ideas, and the 
passions he believed so invincible. 

When a man, especially a young man, comes to me 
for the first time, I can feel whether he is one of 
God's conquests ; I descry the unction of the Chris- 
tian in his features, his thoughts, his voice, and if 
with you I acted so boldly, so promptly, and surely, 
it was because I recognized you. Had you met with 
souls, such as are sometimes to be met with, untouched 
by the grace of God, you would see that in the matter 
of conversion man is powerless; that a thousand 



62 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

lives laid down within an hour, an eloquence enough 
to make a statue weep, are utterly thrown away. 

You must get used to having your actions distorted ; 
every one sees them through his own medium, with 
his own ideas and feelings : our very friends, except 
those bathed in the same divine waters, do not always 
understand us. We must excuse little shortcomings 
in everything. God loves us tenderly, although we 
are so frail, so vain, so prone to evil ! He loves us 
because the little love we return Him touches Him, 
so mighty is a little love ! 

I saw two admirable young converts at Rome. 
France is big with wonders to-day. We cannot love 
her too well, nor despise her calumniators too heartily. 

In a few days I shall be at Dijon : you must address 
your letters there until further notice. For, my dear 
friend, we shall not meet until the end of October. 
Three months absence ! 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 63 



XI. 

%ti <f uerria.— -Jw fepedant and trustful Jloul 

La Quercia, April 16, 1839. 
My dear Friend, 

IT is now a long time since we have heard from 
each other. I have made good way. I write to 
you from a cell, with the Dominican habit on, and by 
God's grace I will never put it off again ! I was 
clothed with it a week ago at Rome, in a chapel of 
the Dominican church called the Minerva, in presence 
of a few friends and a respectable number of French. 
I should have been glad- if you had been there to con- 
gratulate me. You would have seen a ceremony, 
simple it is true, but made admirable by the brother- 
hood which surrounded us. The next day we set out 
for Viterbo, a town in the States of the Church, 
about fifteen leagues from Rome. There are two 
convents of our order there; one called G-radi, where 
St. Dominic himself dwelt; the other called la Quercia, 
that is la Chesnaie. It got its name from an oak- 
forest, in which one of the trees became sacred on 

account of a statue of the Blessed Virgin found in 
6 



64 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

olden times among its boughs by an inhabitant o? 
Viterbo. 

This man built on the spot a magnificent convent 
and a church, into the high altar of which is built the 
trunk of the oak tree with the statue of the Blessed 
Virgin. Here it is that I am going to pass a year with 
my dear companions, who are now my brothers. It 
was thought the air of the place would agree with us 
better, and that we should be much more retired than 
at Rome, which is always crowded with strangers. 
The site is a marvellous one; we are quite happy 
here, and are already used to our new manner of 
living, which is nothing particularly dreadful. In 
1836 I passed through Viterbo, and on entering by 
the Tuscan gate, I descried on my left the door and 
belfry of La Quercia. I did not know its name, but 
it struck me. I am now living there : it was destined 
to be my home contrary to all human prevision. 
Thus the future is completely hidden from us, and 
we unconsciously walk over the spot which will one 
day shelter us. 

Your future too, my dear friend, is hidden from 
me, but if my tears and my prayers be of any avail, 
the light which once shone upon you, will again dawn. 
Do not give way to discouragement ! Truth is ever 
able to win us over, however great the distance at 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 65 

which our mind may keep it. Perhaps, if I am to 
Buffer much upon this earth, you are given me for one 
of those moments when man imagines that there is no 
more joy for him here below, and when God grants 
him such a depth of it, that he believes he never 
before knew what it was. Consequently I hope one 
day to find you a believer once more, and to clasp you 
to my bosom with the twofold tenderness of a friend 
and a monk. Whilst awaiting this immense joy, I 
continue to bear you about in my heart like a wounded 
and loving child, like the latest fruit of my love on 
earth. I am now too old, in years if not in heart, to 
move younger hearts. For the future I shall have to 
look back. I leave you on the threshold of the past : 
you will be the first to meet my backward gaze. Do 
not forget me in that beloved place ! When sad and 
dissatisfied with the world, cast a look from afar 
towards the window of my cell : think of a friend 
who loved you so tenderly. Adieu ! 



66 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 



XII. 

£ip8 of the ©inws. Win Utriter'a 3talt. 
©he fitle 4 £t. iomhtic. 

La Quercia, Oct. 2, 1839. 
Very dear Sir, 

MY first thought is to congratulate you upon the 
position which your merit has achieved for one 
well qualified for it. 

I am really happy to hear you are at Lyons, near 
your mother and your friends, one of a church which 
has maintained inviolate the grandeur of its faith. 
What you tell me of the change in the views of the 
clergy, and of many men who had helped to put them 
into a false position, seems to me to fall in with the 
general movement everywhere visible. What do you 
think of the Archbishop of Toulouse asking the 
Duke of Orleans to his face for the liberty of teach- 
ing promised by our fundamental institutions f The 
Archbishop of Toulouse ! The mover of the censure 
upon the Abb£ de la Mennais and his friends ! One 
may exclaim with Joad : — 

" Was ever time in wonders richer ! " 
We shall see many more yet. There is Don Carlos 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 67 

driven out of Spain, and the revolution mistress of 
the country, until the breath of the Lord shall pass 
over Spain as it did over France. The revolution 
will go the round of the world, as Mirabeau said ; 
but with the Catholic Church in its wake. 

You must know, my dear friend, that in a book 
printed at the beginning of the seventeenth century, 
touching the life of a certain Marina d'Escober, it is 
said she had a vision in which she saw England 
returning to the faith, and Spain falling away from 
it. The same saint prophesied that one day the two 
orders of St. Dominic and St. Ignatius would be 
thoroughly reconciled and united. 

I saw in the Univers that your book was being 

reprinted ; I am very glad of this. You must not 

lay aside the pen. Writing is undoubtedly a hard 

task : but the press has become too powerful to allow 

you to quit your post. Let us write not for glory, 

not for immortality ; but for Jesus Christ. Let us 

sacrifice ourselves to our pen. Even supposing 

nobody were to read us a hundred years hence, what 

matter? The drop of water is swallowed up by the 

sea, it is true ; but still it has gone to make up the 

river, and the river doesn't die. The man of his 

own time, says Schiller, is the man of all times. He 

has done his work : he has had a share in the creation 
6* 



68 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

of things which last. How many books, to-day lost 
in our libraries, contributed, three hundred years 
ago, to bring about the revolution which is before 
our eyes! 

Our ancestors are unknown even to us, and still 
we owe our life to them. Besides none of your writ- 
ings are of a nature to discourage you. Your style 
is nervous, brilliant, and is backed by sound learn- 
ing. Let me engage you to work hard : if I had 
the direction of your conscience I would oblige you 
to do so. 

The end of your letter where you speak to me of 
your continual desire to consecrate yourself to God 
touched me very much. I should be delighted to see 
you one day among us. I cannot exactly say where 
you could find our rules. I fancy a Paris bookseller 
would easily be able to get them for you. In any 
case you would have some trouble in making out the 
mechanism of our order. The end of it is preaching 
and divine learning. The means are prayer, the mor- 
tification of the senses, and study. Our prayer consists 
of psalmody, or rather the recitation of the Canonical 
Office, which takes up about two hours and a half 
every day. We sing only Complin, except on great 
feasts, when we sing Tierce and Vespers as well. 
Our mortification consists in perpetual abstinence 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 69 

from flesh-meat, and fasting every Friday, and from 
the 14th of September until Easter. But this mor- 
tification being only a means of attaining an end, 
may in case of need be dispensed with by the supe- 
rior. The same may be said of our flannel shirt if it 
becomes a torment. We have no extraordinary pen- 
ances, and none are practised except in the measure 
of our wants, and by the advice of our director. 

We have eight or nine hours' study daily ; and in 
certain circumstances exemption from attendance in 
choir is granted ; this increases the time for study. 
The regular novices, that is those who enter the 
order at eighteen or twenty years, have ten years' 
study, are lodged apart, and are allowed the liberty 
of the Fathers only on receiving the priesthood, even 
supposing them to have finished their studies. As to 
the government, it is elective, and admirable in point 
of liberty. Faults against the rule involve no sin, 
except they be in contempt of the rule, or, what is very 
unusual, there be a precept in virtute sanctce obedien- 
tial. Faults are punished by prostrations ; formerly, 
when grave, they might be punished by the discipline 
given upon the shoulders in full chapter. 

The decline of monastic spirit has almost done 
away with this custom. These few words, my dear 
friend, will give you as clear an idea of our life as any 



70 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

one can have who "has not practised it. As soon as 
we have a noviciate a week spent among us will teach 
you more than ten volumes would. For my part I 
am very happy under it : the only thing I regret is 
the absence of a sap and severity which we French 
require. When we become monks, we really mean 
it. Here our life is grave, spiritual, even mortified, 
useful : one feels in a calm country, or one that is at 
least apparently so.* 



XIII. 

Wkt lignitg of ik (pridian, 

Nancy, Jan. 20, 1843. 

I AM thankful to you, my dear friend, for your 
kind remembrance of me, and for all the good 
and kind things you write to me. I am very well 
pleased at your having taken so kindly to study and 
reflection : God has gifted you largely, you must 
become a useful servant in His hands. If he really 

* Since this letter was written, numerous reforms in the 
matter of sap and severity have been introduced into the 
Dominican observances by Father Lacordaire, and Father 
Jaudel, one of his first companions, now General of the Order 
of Friars Preachers. 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 71 

calls you to a harder and more perfect life than that 
of the world, He will signify it to you : you have 
only to ask Him earnestly, and take care never to do 
anything calculated to deprive you of His light or 
weaken it. 

In any case you can no longer lead a cowardly and 
indifferent life, with just sufficient faith to fear hell : 
to-day faith cannot exist without begetting an insight 
into the high dignity of the Christian and his sublime 
mission. Each one of us must be willing to do his 
share towards the salvation of the world, towards the 
restoration of the Church in our country, and to the 
salvation of our unsettled land, which seems to be 
regaining its first position. 

I am very happy here, my dear friend. I have 
been very kindly received, people come to listen to 
the word of God : we are doing some little good, 
pray that it may spread and gain strength. Adieu, 
my dear friend; may God watch over you : give me 
always a share in your love. 



72 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

XIV. 

®0 a Hflunjg Pan an the leath afl his ^father. 

Lyons, March 4, 1845. 
My dear Friend, 

I THANK you for having written to me to tell me 
the grief which has come upon you. God has 
called to Himself the man to whom you owe the 
present life, and the germ of the life to come : this is 
a great loss, one that leaves a great void ! Fortunately 
you had the consolation of seeing your father die in 
the sentiments and the practices of the faith ; this is 
the greatest consolation he could give you, since he 
has thus laid the foundation, and given you the as- 
surance of your future union, if you be yourself 
faithful to the example he has given you. 

The place you are now obliged, by the death of 
your father, to take, is your second title to manhood, 
to which your age had already given you one. You 
have to support and console your mother, and one 
day give her the joy of having brought up servants 
for God during eternity. 

Pray present my respectful regards to your mother, 
my love to your brother, and accept yourself the ex- 
pression of my highest and kindest regarcL 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 



XV. 

Imager, — jjpntatue.— (Itt^ lUadlttj of tfa 
' gfjcrtptuim 

Paris, Nov. 7, 1849. 

YOUR letter, my dear friend, shows me that you 
have already made some way at least in candor 
and simplicity with me. A long and continuous 
watchfulness over yourself, prayer, reading, medita- 
tion, the sacraments, and works of penance and 
charity, will alone enable to root out what is bad in 
you, and above all your pride. Thus, for instance, 
you ought to be very watchful over yourself in 
recreation in order to see whether it is the desire of 
giving others pleasure or that of shining which 
actuates you. 

Kind-heartedness in one's dealings with others is 
the great charm of life. A mind attentive to the 
wants of others, which avoids everything calculated 
to give them pain, which is generous, which does not 
keep silence out of touchiness or pride, that mind is 
the mind of a Christian, and is the joy of every one 
who comes in contact with it. If you succeed in 



74 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

winning love, you will have done enough, for virtue 
is the only way to that end. 

With regard to your meditation, I think the best 
thing you could do would be to listen attentively to 
what is read to you, and to look out in it for some- 
thing upon which your mind can rest. The contem- 
plation of truth, the application of it to one's self, and 
an endeavor to practise it, as lovingly as possible, 
such is real meditation. 

Don't let dryness discourage you. Sensible joy is 
a consolation, but the accomplishment of duty is the 
real source of all interior progress. 

Continued meditation, even indifferently made, 
produces in the long run an increase of spiritual life : 
even if it does not produce perfection, it produces at 
least a habit of the steps to it, namely, reading and 
reflection. " Attende lectioni" says St. Paul. 

Don't attempt any practices of penance which 
might be seen by others : not that we ought to be- 
afraid of being taken for penitents, but because noth- 
ing extraordinary ought to be done before every one ; 
and also because we must not lay ourselves open to 
be thought holier than we really are. You can very 
easily practise certain outward penances which others 
cannot detect : for instance, some slight mortifications 
in your meals, prostrations in your room, and other 
things of the same sort. 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 75 

During your recreations associate with those who 
are least agreeable to you : humbly beg pardon of 
those whom you have offended ; offer up your body 
interiorly to God to be humbled and chastised accord- 
ing to His good pleasure : think of the passion of 
our Lord, reflect upon those parts of it for which you 
feel the greatest repugnance ; do this particularly on 
Fridays. 

It is the meditation of our Lord's sufferings which 
has made all the saints : it is this which corrects in 
us pride, impurity, and all vices of what nature 
soever. If you meet some good young man towards 
whom you feel yourself drawn, ask him to point out 
to you your faults and defects ; but be careful not to 
form connections of which the heart alone an^not 
God is the groundwork, for it is difficult for the flesh 
not to be the base of them. 

Read daily with attention two chapters of the Holy 
Scriptures, one of the Old Testament, beginning with 
the first chapter of Genesis; the other of the New 
Testament, beginning with the first chapter of St. 
Matthew. 

Go down on your knees for a moment in order to 
prepare yourself for this reading, and kiss your Bible 
affectionately on beginning and ending. You must 
get to esteem above everything else every word of 



76 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

that book, and to esteem other books only in so far as 
they approach it. After having thus read the whole 
Bible, you would do well to confine yourself to the 
Psalms in the Old Testament, and to the Epistles of 
St. Paul in the New. If you could learn those two 
parts by heart, it would be of great advantage to your 
soul. 

I should not advise you to widen the circle of your 
philosophical studies, but, on the contrary, to narrow 
and concentrate them. Concentration is the prime 
and sole element of strength. Learn to sound 
thoroughly a few lines even of an indifferent author, 
at a time. Nothing can be turned to account except 
what has been ripened by meditation. A large range 
of reading dazzles the mind, and may, in the case of 
him who has a good memory, dazzle others, but it 
gives neither solidity nor depth. Depth always sup- 
poses extent, but extent does not involve depth. You 
may take as a penance, for the faults of which you 
speak, a prostration of ten minutes in your room. 

I recommend myself to your prayers, and embrace 
you tenderly in our Lord. 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 77 

XVI. 

®fa %%t of preparation. 

Paris, March 25, 1850. 
My dear Friend, 

I HAVE left your kind letter long unanswered. 
My numerous occupations during Lent are the 
reason of this. But I am desirous of not seeing Lent 
close without giving you some signs of life and a word 
of encouragement. 

It seems to me that you are giving yourself too 
much trouble about the question of your vocation, and 
that you are looking for somewhat too mathematical 
proofs of it. This is not the rule in the things of 
God. God unfolds Himself slowly, by repeated im- 
pressions which finally produce powerful ones in the 
soul, and leave no doubt about His will. You are 
young, as yet unformed. Consequently it is quite 
natural you should experience a certain instability, 
especially when you look forward to the long series 
of years you have still to wait before arriving at the 
priesthood. You must let days take their course. 
"Sufficit diei malitia sua." Years glide by quickly 
when left to themselves. Besides, you must learn 
and lay in your stock for the rest of your life. I have 



78 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

always regretted not having had ten years sound 
theological study before entering upon active life. 
This all-absorbing life leaves you no time to repair 
the want of solidity of the foundations ; it hurries you 
on without your being able to halt a single instant in 
order to do something in the way of fresh study. 
You have scarcely time to read a paper, and an odd 
book of mark. Take advantage, then, of the interval 
which separates you from the world and from active 
life, by diving deep into the fountain-head of divine 
science. The waters appear at first chilly and bitter ; 
a day will come when you will look upon them as the 
most invigorating and sweetest of drinks. 

During Holy Week, from Monday morning until 
Saturday evening, give your time to meditating on 
the Passion of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. 
Try to picture it to yourself in its minutest details. 
Make a constant application of it to yourself person- 
ally, and offer without ceasing your body to God, to 
suffer all that Jesus Christ has suffered. The saints 
say that nothing is more agreeable to God, and better 
calculated to form within us the spirit of faith and 
charity. Make out some little privations and pen- 
ances for yourself, according to the measure of your 
strength. Sacrifice is very easy when we are with 
others, so many opportunities of repressing our incli* 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 79 

aations offer ! The spiritual rod is always within our 
reach, and if we cannot chastise our body as it deserves, 
it is very easy for us to chastise our soul. 

Adieu, pray for me. I embrace you as my child 
in Jesus Christ. 



XVII. 

frager nn& Shading, 

Paris, June 10, 1850. 
My dear Friend, 

I HAVE been in Paris for the last few days, and I 
return to-morrow to Flavigny, where I received 
your letter. It gave me real pleasure, because it 
showed me you were advancing in virtue. As charity 
is the most excellent of all virtues, your looking after 
that sick young man, and tending him as you would 
our Lord, is a really good work. As to doing more, 
I do not think it advisable. He would probably not 
understand such acts of piety, and they are conse- 
quently better left alone. 

You must not be astonished at the difficulty you 
find in mental prayer. 

The best thing you could do would be to read at- 
tentively every evening one or two verses of the Gos- 
7* 



80 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

pel, or of the Epistles of St. Paul, and fix your mind 
upon them on the morrow, producing such acts of 
love, faith, and compunction, as you might be able, 
and then to make every evening some good resolution, 
no matter how trifling. Lastly, you must beg of God 
unceasingly the grace to pray well. 

I am grieved that your studies are not well man- 
aged. By reading thus incoherently, without aim and 
without order, you are losing valuable time, and what 
is more, you are getting yourself out of the way of 
real work, which is a great misfortune for the mind. 
Since the study of philosophy, as taught to you, is 
insufficient to fill up your time, take up the study of 
Ecclesiastical History or of the Holy Scripture. 
These are the two indispensable parts of the theolo- 
gian. Buy a History of the Church, read it, pen in 
hand, in order to fix on your memory the dates and 
principal events. You will thereby lay up a treasure 
which a slight effort will turn to account. But what- 
ever you do, do it continually and perseveringly. I 
would rather you read nothing than read at hap- 
hazard. 

Adieu, my dear friend, pray for me, and continue 
to give me an account of your soul. I embrace you 
tenderly. 



LETTERS TO YO UNG MEN. 81 



XVIII. 

Flavigny, July 29, 1850. 
My dear Friend. 

THE consciousness of all the pride which is within 
you, and of the pain it gives to others, is a great 
step forward. There is nothing more hateful nor 
more hated than pride, when shown exteriorly; 
hence, modesty is the first element of real politeness. 
The Christian must, however, aim higher. Even 
when modesty is genuine, that is, when it is the 
fruit of a real desire to please others, it is but a veil 
thrown over pride, in order to spare the sight of it to 
those with whom we live. The Christian must be 
humble ; and humility does not consist in hiding our 
talents and virtues, but in the clear knowledge of all 
that is wanting to us, in not being elated by what we 
have, since it is a free gift of God, and even with all 
His gifts, we are still infinitely little. It is a remark- 
able fact that great virtue necessarily begets humility, 
and that if great talent does not always produce the 
same effect, still it softens down a great deal of the 
unevenness which the pride of second-rate men is 



82 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

continually throwing into relief. Real excellence and 
humility are consequently not incompatible one with 
the other, on the contrary, they are twin sisters. God, 
who is excellence itself, is without pride. He sees 
Himself as He is, without however despising what is 
not Himself; He is Himself naturally and simply, 
with a leaning for all His creatures, however humble. 
Goodness and humility are almost one and the same 
thing. 

The kind-hearted feel themselves naturally drawn 
to give themselves, to sacrifice themselves, to make 
themselves cheap, and this is humility. Pride is 
more hated than any other vice, not only because it 
wounds our self-love, but because it testifies to a want 
of that goodness without which it is impossible to 
win love. Be therefore kind-hearted, and you will 
infallibly become humble. Your eyes, your lips, the 
lines of your forehead, all will get quite another look, 
and you will find that you will be sought after quite 
as much as you were shunned. But, how become 
kind-hearted ? Alas ! first of all, by begging it 
earnestly and unceasingly of God, and then by 
endeavoring on every occasion to consult the pleasure 
of others, and sacrifice our own to them. It is a 
lengthy apprenticeship, but will carries a man through 
everything. 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. . 83 



XIX. 

©n (Muatimt — %Mu to n gounji Wntor. 

Paris, December 10, 1850. 
My dear Friend, 

YOUR fears with regard to the task God has 
intrusted to you, do not astonish me. This 
task is a great one. Nothing is more difficult than 
the education of a child, and I am not sure whether 
in ordinary circumstances success is possible, so 
numerous are the obstacles to be met with in all that 
surround, in his family, the best natured and best 
disposed child. You might read in the works of 
Fenelon what relates to the education of the Duke of 
Burgundy. Your pupil is not a prince, but he is a 
man, and the difference between the two is not great. 
You will readily understand that I cannot give 
/you a treatise on the matter; and even supposing I 
had time and space, still I am without experience, 
which is in this, more so than in other matters, the 
great master. . I have never had the education of any 
one, and I do not think I was myself educated, 
although I had the best and most perfect of mothers. 
Her position obliged her to send me to college at the 



84 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

age of ten years, and goodness knows that in that 
college there was not the shadow of education, except 
military discipline and the fisty-cuffing of the boys, 
within their four walls. Religion, morals, politeness, 
all disappeared gradually, and all the good that 
remained in us came doubtless from the impressions 
we retained of our childhood. 

I had, it is true, from my eleventh until my fifteenth 
year, a master who took great interest in me, and 
who did me every kind of good office, but much more 
in a literary w^ay than in any other. He won my 
confidence and affection, whilst my other masters 
inspired me with nothing but indifference, dashed 
with almost perpetual mutiny. You may see that 
such a course was not calculated to give any very 
great knowledge in the matter of education.* 

I think the chief point is to love one's pupil : to 
love him in God, not with a soft and carnal, but with 
a sincere affection, which does not exclude firmness. 
The child must fear, above all, giving pain to his 
master, and learn to look for his reward in the satis- 
faction he gives him. This w T ill be effected by the 
pupil's loving his master, loving him sincerely, and 

* The great talent displayed by Father Lacordaire, later 
on, in the conduct of the great schools he took in hand, espe- 
cially those of Soreze, is known to everybody. — Editor's Note. 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 85 

it is difficult to produce this feeling in a soul which 
knows nothing of life, which sees itself cared for and 
caressed by everybody, and naturally looks upon its 
parents and masters as the instruments of its pleasures. 
The large majority of children are brought up in 
frightful selfishness on account of the very affection 
shown them : a disorderly affection which becomes 
their slave, and flatters in them the dreadful inclina- 
tion of taking everything to themselves, without ever 
making any spontaneous return for the sake of giving 
pleasure to others. How is this rock to be avoided ? 
How win love without developing the selfishness of 
the child, instead of the cordial return ? At college, 
notwithstanding the drawbacks of public education, 
there is at least the advantage of having rivals, adver- 
saries, enemies : of having truths told and slaps given, 
which is an admirable way of learning how little we 
are, and gives us a proper notion of the value of that 
gratuitous friendship which some of our school-fellows 
show us. In the midst of one's family this painful 
initiation is altogether wanting. The child has 
neither rivals nor enemies; nobody tells him hard 
truths ; he is unacquainted with pain for want of an 
occasional blow from an ill-disposed hand. He is a 
kind of mummy swathed in silk, and ends by believ- 
ing himself to be a little god. 



86 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

The child then must be punished when he does 
wrong — he must have privations imposed upon 
him — his faults must be plainly laid open to him ; 
in case of need, a cold and severe countenance must 
be shown him; he must be exposed to slight trials to 
open out his sensibility, and to tiny perils in order to 
give him an idea of what it is to have a little cour- 
age ; he must be made to ask pardon even of servants 
when he has offended them ; he must from time to 
time be condemned to rough work, in order to pre- 
vent him from despising inferior occupations. There 
are a thousand ^other details into which one might 
enter. Every opportunity must be seized of kindling 
in his soul the fire of sacrifice, without which every 
man, whatever his rank, is contemptible. 

As for religion, care must be taken not to present 
it to him as simple devotion made up of pious and 
soothing ceremonies. This kind of religion is but a 
shadow which vanishes at the first onset of the pas- 
sions. Solid instruction, containing sacred history, 
dogma and moral, is the foundation of the whole 
religious edifice. 

A moderate amount of prayer, a little pious read- 
ing every day, the love of the poor, an occasional 
confession, and a communion, if possible, as frequent 
as his confession, the love of Jesus Christ growing 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 87 

out of the knowledge of his life and death, an occa- 
sional slight mortification, and a few acts of external 
humility ; such appears to me to be a method calcu- 
lated to ensure sound and lasting results. But every- 
thing depends upon the master, and almost upon 
every moment. A single impression is enough to 
inflict upon the soul an irreparable wound, or so to 
confirm it in the right way that it will never leave it 
without remorse. 



XX. 



on iht (ffontiersioit nif it Jiout from §rote- 
tnwtimx to Catholicism. 

L 

Nancy, August 14, 1863. 

I PERCEIVE with great joy that God continues 
to support and enlighten you in the important 
work vou have taken in hand. You have entered 
upon a period of your life upon which your eternity 
depends, whether you yield to the grace of God which 
urges you, or resist it. Your mind once made up, 
God will not abandon you, if you choose Him ; and 
if you do not submit, He will probably never knock 
so loudly at your soul again. It was for those chiefly 

in your position that Jesus Christ pronounced the 
9 



88 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

words which He addressed to Jerusalem. " If thou 
didst but know, and that in this thy day, the things 
that are for thy peace, but now they are hidden from 
thee. For the day shall come when thy enemies shall 
cast a trench about thee, and beat thee flat to the 
ground, and shall not leave in thee a stone upon a 
6tone, because thou hast not known the time of thy 
visitation." 

God has long been paving the way for your return 
to truth. He has given you pious friends, capable 
of touching you by word and example ; He has torn 
down from your heart the veil woven by pride, which 
usually blinds heretics, and makes them more rebel- 
lious against Divine light than even barbarians or 
idolaters, because they think they know, and their 
personal acquirements revolt against knowledge 
which must be taken in with the simplicity of a child, 
according to the saying of our Lord, " Unless you 
become as little children, you shall not enter into the 
kingdom of heaven." You are no longer affected by 
this heretical pride, if ever you were ; you see your 
ignorance, your weakness, and the illusions of science 
itself; you feel the want of an authority to teach you 
with certitude revealed laws and dogmas, and to lead 
you, in the peace of present, to the peace of future 
unity. 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 89 

You clearly see that in outside authority there is 
nothing but doubt and variation, and that even when 
*he separated sects proclaim your individual liberty, 
they exercise an act of authority in your regard, add- 
ing contradiction to rebellion, asking you to refuse 
obedience to the universal Church, in order to show 
it to a particular one. These things are as clear as 
the day-light, and still they can be seen by no one 
unless his eyes are opened by grace. Yours are ! 

The only thing you want is perseverance in inquir- 
ing into the Catholic faith, and the courage to 
renounce humbly your past errors. 

I feel persuaded you will do so, and that you will 
thus happily reach the goal where God awaits you. 
Pray to Him unceasingly to hasten this hour, to sever 
your last bonds, and to make you a living member 
of the city of the saints and angels. 

Nothing could give me more joy than to hear of 
your final triumph ; I shall have done but very little 
towards it : but everything done in Jesus Christ is 
common to us all, and we rejoice at it as at a thing 
which touches us personally. 



90 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 



XXI. 

%m ami §ta#imx. 

My dear Friend, 

GOD has given you a weighty share of the trials 
of this life ; He has stricken you as though wil- 
fully, less like a child one chastises than as a victim 
one immolates, and still you do not seem to see the 
bent He has given you for Himself. If He wishes 
to possess your whole soul, can we ' be surprised that 
He deprives it of everything capable of leading it 
astray? The Gospel tells us He is a kind God. 
Those caresses of which you dream, that sweet and 
lawful love which would overflow like a balm from 
your stricken heart ; those ineffable delights of pure 
affection .of which men are allowed to get a snatch ; 
why should not your Lord be afraid that these 
things would prevent you from loving Him alone ? 
" We have been crushed, in order to our fusion/ 7 said 
M. de Maistre, of the peoples of Europe. TVhen 
God crushes us under the rod, is it not with a view 
that our blood may mingle with His, with His shed 
long ago under harder and more humiliating strokes ? 
Is it not that we may seek no other face than the 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 91 

bleeding face of our Saviour, no other eyes than His, 
no other lips than His, no other shoulders than His 
shoulders torn by the scourge, no other hands and 
feet to kiss than His hands and feet pierced with nails 
for love of us, no other wounds to tend with gentle- 
ness than His divine and ever bleeding wounds? 
Ah ! my friend, is not love ever love? You com- 
plain that you are not loved, and God has given you 
in the bottom of your heart a chaste, immense, invin- 
cible love. You would fain harbor another profane 
love, and God, who perhaps does not will it, strikes 
and wounds you; He shows you the infinite, the 
vanity of the world ; He crucifies you in order to get 
you to love His crucified Son more, and realize that 
crucifixion in yourself. You will probably get my 
letter in solitude, in a place where there are others 
too who could have loved the creature with rapture, 
and they have sacrificed it to God. I do not know His 
special designs in your regard, but I know that His 
design upon all men is to be loved by them, and that 
the whole conduct of His providence is directed to 

this end. 

8* 



92 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 



XXII. 

Spn t\u Union of djatholirs for the l^nq 
of HUlijgious SHfatitg. 

Nancy, June 16, 1844. 
SiE, 

I WAS just leaving Grenoble, when your letter, in- 
forming me of your approaching marriage, was 
handed to me. This circumstance has delayed my 
answer to your kind and friendly communication. 

It was with unfeigned pleasure, Sir, that I learned 
from yourself the event which will give your life a 
fixed centre, and put you in the way of doing ail the 
good you have in view. Neither means nor oppor- 
tunity will fail you, for the farther we go the more 
intense becomes the struggle between the good and 
the bad ; and very soon the only question in Europe 
will be the religious one flanked by that of true free- 
dom. The sudden and unexpected union which has 
taken place between the Catholics of France is a 
novel and almost unheard of phenomenon, unexam- 
pled since the time of the league. A very short time 
ago we were Gallicans, and Ultramontanes, Cartesians 
and Lamennesians, Legitimists and Juste-miliens, 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 93 

friends and enemies of the principle of liberty : to- 
day these very grave differences seem to have died 
out : the common danger has rallied every one, and I 
am constantly coming upon the proof of that divine 
instinct which draws us all together. A week ago I 
was preaching in the cathedral of Langres, at the re- 
quest of the bishop, hitherto very hostile to me ; and 
there was no possible kind of good grace which he 
did not bring to our reconciliation, even to compli- 
menting me, at the end of the sermon, before the 
whole audience. Let us thank God for this change, 
and let us pray for its continuance ; had it not been 
for the quarrels of Gallicanism, the eighteenth century 
would not have had such an easy triumph ! 



XXIII. 

% gfjjerimM of Utonastir J ntwjgtittjg. 

Nancy, October 3, 1846. 

WILL tell you straightforwardly, my dear friend, 
my views with regard to the circumstances which 
again change your position. Your quitting the world 
and refusiug the advantages offered to you, cannot, it 
6eems to me, be seriously contemplated by you. Youri 



I 



94 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

duties to your family, and your debt towards your 
friend, are sacred bonds. God seems to take a pleas- 
ure in thwarting all your plans, and in keeping you 
in the world. Even supposing you do not see His 
object in this, it would be difficult not to recognize 
in all these accidents a mark of His will, to which 
you must submit. You will perhaps serve Him 
better in the world than you would have done under 
the monk's frock. It seems to me clear that you 
ought to accept the brilliant offers that are made to 
you, and think seriously of making your way in the 
world, without troubling yourself any further' about 
a plan in the way of which Providence throws so 
many obstacles. 

I again offer you, my dear friend, the expression 
of my affection, and of the esteem in which I hold 
you, on account of your clinging to a project so fre- 
quently thwarted, and which has just fallen to the 
ground, notwithstanding our mutual desires. I trust 
you will not forget us, and for my part, I shall be 
delighted whenever I can see you. Adieu, then, and 
let me see you soon. 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 95 



XXIV. 

Obstacles in tk l&ag of a Ration. 
§atmtre and f^are. 

Chalais, J«/y 16, 1847. 

YOU know, my dear child, the interest I take in 
the state of your soul, and in the desire you are 
cherishing. If I had been in any way able to help 
you through the difficulty, I should have done so long 
ago. But God evidently kept us both fast, and we 
must submit to His holy will until the end. We 
know neither His reasons nor His day ; we simply 
know chat He loves us, and does everything for the 
sake of His elect. Yesterday I got a letter from a 
young man who has for \ears been prevented from 
entering the Dominican Order : now he is free. Un- 
heard of obstacles have been surmounted by him. 

The same will be your case, my dear child, in 
God's own time. " Nescis, modo, scies autem postea." 
Live calm in hope, remembering the saying of St. 
Paul : " Tribulation worketh patience, and patience 
experience, and experience hope, and hope maketh 
not ashamed." Alas ! I would give a great deal to 



<*6 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

be able to free you, but I cannot. This afflicts me 
greatly. 

Do your daily work. "Sufficit diei malitia sua," 
said our Lord. What a beautiful and touching say- 
ing ! How well suited to our misery ! Don't let us 
trouble about the future : let us simply bear our bur- 
den each day. I too used to be hot and impatient : 
to-day I am no longer so : I await peacefully the 
will of my Lord, and I have always found it to be 
good and amiable whenever I have been able to get 
at the secret of it. 

You ask me for a book that would be serviceable 
to you. I think that the Guide of Louis of Gh*anada, 
a celebrated work of one of our fathers, would do 
you good. Read it slowly so as to derive a benefit 
from it. See in this light what you want, and en- 
deavor to acquire it. When a man knows how really 
to read, few books are sufficient. 

I embrace you, my dear child, with all my heart. 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 97 



xxy. 

flrfijkafron and frager. 

Paris, Aug. 31, 1850. 
My dear Friend, 

I AM very well satisfied with your account of your- 
self, with your practices and your good resolu- 
tions. I am afraid, however, that you are carrying 
fasting too far. Fasting is sometimes borne for some 
years, and ends by gradually breaking down the 
health. One o'clock in the afternoon seems to me a 
rather late hour for breakfast. But if you do not 
carry them to excess, you are quite right in giving 
yourself up to mortification and prayer : they are the 
two great sources of the spiritual life, and each 
strengthens the other. That in which many persons 
consecrated to God fall short, is, as you say, mortifica- 
tion. They live without bringing under the body, 
and the soul gets drowsy, even when it is not the 
slave of the lower appetites. With regard to prayer, 
I should like you to recite the Psalter once a week, 
dividing it into seven parts, or at least once every 
fortnight, which would make ten Psalms a day. 
This was a very celebrated practice in the middle 



98 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

ages, a very improving one, and it is a great pity 
that the faithful have given it up for prayers which 
are very frequently neither forcible nor of any 
standing. 



XXYI. 



tBpon (Bratitette for (&w& §om in the spiritual 

<Bntei[. 

Paris, Dec, 11, 1850. 
Sir, 

THE sentiments conveyed in your letter are a 
matter of great consolation to me. For we can 
have no higher lot than to be the instruments of 
God's grace in souls. You are good enough to tell 
me that my conferences helped to bring back your 
soul into the path of truth, and that you still find 
them a source of good and pious desires. I rejoice 
at it, although God is everything, and His ministers 
are simply docile instruments in His hands, follow- 
ing the impulse He gives them. I rejoice at it, for 
your sake and my own : for yours, since you gain 
strength by reading those conferences; for myself, 
because you return me in exchange the help of your 
gratitude before God. God has constantly protected 



LETTERSTO YOUNG MEN. 99 

me. I attribute His blessing to the prayers of those 
who, like you, Sir, pray to Him in my behalf. Let 
me beg of you to continue so to do, and be sure that 
you will thus repay me a hundred-fold the little good 
I have done you. 

Pray receive, Sir, together with my thanks, the 
cordial expression of my high consideration. 



I 



XXVII. 

HAVE felt a real joy, Sir, in what you tell me 
of the good I formerly did you. Those times are 
daily receding from me : the generation to which I 
announced the word of God is beginning to advance 
in life, and very soon it will be only in heaven, please 
God, that will live the memory of those meetings 
which you assiduously attended. Be kind enough, 
then, to pray for him who now and again found the 
way to your soul. 

9 



100 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 



XXVIII. 

fahtixtut mu\ SHtertg.— %Mtt ionthing 
(Mutation, 

Parts, January 21, 1851. 
My deae Friend, 

I DO not think you ought to condemn your pupil 
to depend absolutely on the will of others, and to 
dlprive him of all liberty of choice. We must avoid 
equally nurturing in a young soul the spirit of 
slavery and the spirit of independence, because both 
are contrary to the real state of the Christian as 
depicted in the Gospel. A child who never deliber- 
ates, never chooses ; who is passive in all he does, will 
never be good for anything but to submit cravenly 
to men and things set over him by chance : in like 
manner the child who is reared in independence will 
not submit where obedience is necessary, nor support 
with rational honor the pain of lawful obedience. 
These difficulties, by the way, abound in everything; 
man is constantly placed between two extremes. The 
ancients used to say : " In medio stat virtus." Virtue 
has not shifted her quarters since then ; she is still 
where Aristotle found her. 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 101 

But now the question is how to bring a child up 
to the use of liberty without making him master; 
how to make him obedient without his being craven ? 
This is undoubtedly a delicate task. I have heard 
thaf the children educated by the persons of whom 
you speak are generally unenterprising, wanting in 
decision and boldness, and that they require to be 
constantly held in leading-strings. I cannot say 
whether this is true or not, since I have never had 
an opportunity of verifying the fact. Were this the 
case, their education would fail in an essential point* 
and this result would doubtless be attributable to their 
constantly passive state. A child must neither com- 
mand nor obey at every turn, like spoilt children ; 
but he is not therefore to be kept under like a slave, 
nor to be afraid of having an idea of his own. 



XXIX. 

|p0us lusting — Utarfe of J^nanr*. 

Paris, March 3, 1851. 
My deae Friend, 

IT is a pleasure to me to see how kindly you have 
taken to the task intrusted to you by God, although 
you did not feel any natural liking for it, inasmuch 



102 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

as it is a work which necessitated a good deal of self- 
sacrifice, and put you in a kind of domesticity. Faith 
has given you another view of it : you have attached 
yourself to that child as to a soul which came from 
God, baptized in the blood of our Lord, and in which 
you could complete the work of mercy begun by its 
birth and baptism. It has turned out that the accept- 
ance of duty has been rewarded by those secret joys 
of the heart, by that unction usually given by God to 
those who serve Him in simplicity and humility, 
without looking to the littleness or the greatness of 
positions, a greatness illusory when borrowed from 
the world, and not from heaven. You may turn your 
position to admirable account in acquiring all Chris- 
tian virtues. You have already made real way, 
although there remain in you the roots of the old na- 
ture ; viz., of pride, clinging to your own views, and 
a worldly spirit. But you are getting on. Do not 
get frightened at your powerlessness in meditation. 
Take a book : the Imitation of Jesus Christ ; the 
Gospel ; or the Epistles of St. Paul : read a few verses, 
endeavor to enter into the spirit of them : throw your- 
self at the feet of our Lord as though he were present : 
kiss them with tenderness and humility, and ask Him 
to grant you to find pleasure in His word only, and 
in that of His saints. 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 103 

You used to be very fond of worldly books, your 
affection must now be set upon the works of those 
who have followed our Lord and the Church. The 
others are almost all infected with ignorance, pride, 
empty systems, and are covertly, when not overtly 
hostile to truth. We always lose more than we gain 
by them, and we must only take them up when neces- 
sary, when we stand in absolute need of them in order 
to find out things we are bound to know. Besides, 
books are so numerous that we cannot even read all 
those which are excellent : why lose our time in pe- 
rusing those which are spoilt by a warped judgment? 

With regard to penance, your state of health will 

allow of nothing very considerable. But there are 

privations which, amid the abundance in which you 

live, may pass off unnoticed, and acts of humility 

which do good to the soul without injuring the body. 

Practise largely this sort of mortification. It gently 

introduces into our hearts a seed which grows like the 

mustard-seed. A short time ago I came upon one of 

Fenelon's letters in which he advises a great courtier, 

the Duke de Chevreux, to prostrate himself betimes 

in the secrecy of his cabinet. And still nothing gives 

us to understand that Fenelon had a particular taste 

for external acts of penance : he is constantly falling 

back upon the pure and disinterested love of God, 
9* 



104 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

and he is quite right. But the only road to this love 
is the one marked out by our Lord in His passion 
from the Garden of Olives to the Pretorium, and 
thence to Calvary. 

It was Love which traced out this road, and Love 
probably knew the path which leads to Himself. 



XXX. 



female Storing. 

Paris. June 12, 1851. 

TOUCHING your relations with the persons of 
whom you speak, I have nothing to say except 
that you should be extremely prudent, but without any 
affectation. Wherever there are women there are 
perils for the heart. Avoid everything which you 
could not do and say before witnesses : this is the 
great rule, and by it duty and peace are alike safe- 
guarded. Avoid as far as possible conversations at 
which the whole family is not present : when they are 
all together, one is always safe. I am well aware that 
in your case nothing grave is to be feared, since you 
are in a house where all is honor and edification ; but 
sometimes security itself is a peril, because the very 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 105 

innocence of all that surrounds us makes us less watch- 
ful over our hearts. I easily understand, my dear 
friend, the difficulty you find in prayer, and in your 
relations with God. A happy and comfortable life 
readily produces this listlessness of soull We enjoy 
ourselves innocently, and yet little by little the spring 
gets weak, prayer becomes irksome, mortification is 
lost sight of, we get into a negative state with regard 
to God, which deprives us of the joys of conscious 
love. The only cure I can see for this is to give God 
certain regular moments daily, to bind one's self down 
to certain exterior acts, which may withdraw us, from 
time to time, from our insensibility. If meditation is 
hard, spiritual reading might be useful to you. In 
short, my dear friend, whatever you do, let it be done 
earnestly and perseveringly. 



XXXI. 



®ft* Wiinp of $e»t— ®k Wtototw* of iht 

Paris, July 22, 1851. 

I AM hesitating whether or not to write to you this 
evening. I have but half an hour to give you, and 
I should like to give you more : but I prefer sending 



106 LETTERS TO YO UNO MEN. 

you a line a day earlier to enjoying the pleasure of 
writing to you quietly and at my leisure. There you 
are then, far from us, in a charming solitude, like a 
spoilt child of our good Father, whilst we are staying 
here in the heat and monotony of Paris. Just at your 
age, I was starting for Switzerland, with my knapsack 
upon my back ; and I thought myself the happiest of 
mortals. Since that time I have travelled a great 
deal, and the want of it does not now affect me. I 
have bid farewell to mountains, valleys, rivers, un- 
known shades, in order to form in my room, between 
God and my soul, an horizon vaster than the world. 
Thus, however distant, you are still near me ; in my 
happy moments, you form a special ornament of the 
place in which I have collected together all I love, 
and in vain you climb your mountains to escape me : 
escape is difficult from those to whom God has given 
the wings of rest. You will perhaps ask me what 
this is, but you have too much imagination not to 
know, and these wings have, I hope, already borne 
you aloft a little ! 

I am thankful to you for all the details you give 
me touching the good and bad side of your life. You 
can lay yourself open by letter as well as in conversa- 
tion, and this is a happy gift. I cannot get rid of my 
astonishment at the hold external beauty takes upon 



LETTERS TO YOUXG MEN. 107 

you, and of your powerlessness to shut your eyes. 
And yet it is so small a thing for a soul which has 
but once seen and felt God ! I cordially pity your 
weakness, and wonder at it as a great phenomenon to 
which I have not the key. Never since I have known 
Jesus Christ, has anything appeared to me beautiful 
enough to look upon it with concupiscence, and espe- 
cially with a concupiscence like yours, so deep, so 
thorough, and so contented. Fortunately God has 
given you as a counterpoise a great faith, and a love 
which is beginning to become tender. You know you 
promised me to go to confession every w T eek, and to 
communion every week too, provided your confessor 
allows you. This is a pacta conventa, and you would 
be a traitor not to keep to it. In the spiritual, as in 
human life, perseverance is everything. If you return 
to irregular and aimless habits, you will infallibly 
lose all the way you have made. 

Adieu, my dear child, my half-hour is up. I have 
still three little hours * to say, then to go to choir, 
then I have vespers, then supper, then recreation, and 
then sleep. I embrace you, then, begging you to re- 
member that I love you sincerely and deeply, as my 
son. 

* A portion of the Roman Breviary, so called because said 
at different hours of the day. — T)'anslato?''s Note. 



108 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 



XXXII. 

Win (ffonjijtetttiat ^ommmucaticns of a Jjrieiul 

Parts, August 2, 1851. 

JAM really grieved, my dear friend, at having 
given you pain by a remark in my last letter, in 
which I believe I told you I did not understand your 
fickleness in good and evil. Alas! I was wrong: 
everything in the passions of man is comprehensible. 
God has given you an ardent and generous nature, 
the grace of a firm faith, and admirable appreciation 
of all the beauties of the Christian life. But your 
senses, as yet imperfectly subdued, are waging a terri- 
ble war with you. What more simple ? You have 
already made great strides in virtue, and you will 
make still greater ; for God loves you and you love 
Him. Never tire of struggling and hoping ! The 
calmer days you have enjoyed since your seclusion 
have given me real joy. I can fancy I am there with 
you. I climb your mountains, stroll along your 
valleys, sit down with you under a tree, at the foot 
of a rock, and we talk in peace of the beautiful things 
of God, They are the only ones to which we must 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 109 

cling ; fortunately you are one of them, and I thank 
God for it with all my heart. 

Since the twentieth of July I have had rather sad 
times. A sore throat, accompanied with a slight 
fever, came upon me two days before a sermon I was 
to preach in the church of St. Thomas d'Aquin. 
Three or four days afterwards the fever disappeared ; 
but I still had a heaviness in my head, a quantity of 
blood in the tliroat and nostrils, and all this accom- 
panied by a general prostration and a kind of inca- 
pacity for work. 

As I am not accustomed to sickness, this indispo- 
sition brought on a fit of melancholy. And all kinds 
of painful thoughts came into my mind, and betimes 
I experienced a distaste for life, such as I had never 
known before. It seemed to me as though I had 
nothing more to do here below, and as though God 
was warning me to get ready for my departure. This 
morning, whilst writing to you, I have recovered ray 
ordinary state ; is it you who revive me, or the aco- 
nite which my doctor has just made me take after the 
homoeopathic fashion ? 

I really think it must be you, and also the feast of 
St. Dominic, which is at hand. We shall celebrate it 
the day after to-morrow. The archbishop is coming 
to say mass in our church; he will then assist at 



110 LETTERS TO YOUNG M EN. 

higli mass, and afterwards breakfast with us and 
about twenty of our friends. We shall be still more 
numerous at Flavigny. His Lordship the Bishop of 
Dijon has promised to officiate, and besides those we 
have invited, the railway will, as usual, bring us a 
great many casual visitors. 

You are aware that you have got to pass a few days 
at Flavigny this autumn, and if you spend the winter 
in Italy it will be on your road. I should like too 
to show you Chalais ; Chalais means the Alps, pines, 
torrents, immense views, something quite worthy of 
an imagination like yours, a place you would like for 
its own sake, and which you would not forget. 

I am deeply touched, my dear little child, at what 
you tell me of your attachment for the poor old 
monk. I should talk to you much more tenderly 
were I not past the age when the heart pours itself 
out with restraint. Despite myself, I weigh what I 
say in order not to appear too simple and too loving. 
In heaven alone affections will no longer know the 
difference of age ; there we shall have all eternity be- 
fore &s without restraint. Here below, twenty or 
five-and-twenty years' difference is a great deal. I 
may, it is true, call myself your father, and in that 
capacity press you tenderly to my heart. 

Tell me when you are coming back, if soon, and 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. Ill 

by what road. Take great care of yourself, sleep, 
eat, drink, rest yourself, and walk moderately. Just 
bear in mind that you have to lose three years in 
order to gain a lifetime. Besides, with your projects, 
what does it matter to you ? Make the sacrifice gayly 
to Esculapius, or Apollo, I don't remember which, 
but, above all, make the sacrifice to those who love 
you, myself included, and to God, who is the first 
and best of your friends. 

A thousand kind greetings to your mountains, 
which are doing you good : to your air, your woods, 
your streams, and to all that is bringing you round. 
And as to yourself, my dear child, what can I say to 
you, if not that you have just given me one of the 
most delightful mornings I have enjoyed for a long 
time. Here I am, quite young again, all life, but 
not so as to allow me to embrace you as I should 
like, which however I do as well as I can, with the 
leave of our good God, and your own. Adieu ! 

10 



112 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 



XXXIII. 

Wkt Duties nfl the (pteem 

Paris, December 11, 1851. 
My dear Friend, 

YESTERDAY a letter of yours was shown me 
which gave me some uneasiness. It did not 
appear to me sufficiently Christian, sufficiently calm, 
worthy of the mind God has given you, and of the 
designs with which He has inspired you for His 
glory and your own sanctification. Already your 
only object in this world is to prepare yourself to 
preach Christianity to it, which, whilst naturalizing 
justice here below, has also naturalized here gentle- 
ness and peace. Let me then beg of you, my little 
child, to be more staid and cautious in your way of 
thinking, in order to remain thoroughly master of 
yourself. It is probable that your life will be passed 
in the midst of the most various public vicissitudes ; 
you will not be an indifferent spectator, but you will 
undergo them with courage, acting at every step in 
the measure of your strength according to duty. 

When a good citizen loves God and his country, 
he does all he can, and attempts nothing more : he is 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN 113 

prudent without cowardice, and as lie is disinterested, 
he is seldom mistaken with regard to his duty. 

This, my dear child, is the little scolding I wanted 
to give you. I say nothing to you of the air and cli- 
mate you are enjoying, because these things are insig- 
nificant when compared with the events which are 
going forward about us. But I can at all times tel] 
you I love you, because you will always deserve it. 



XXXIV. 

Sfk Jfuture of <$rma and tin Christian JJptrii 

PARIS, January 3, 1852. 
My dear Friend, 

YOUR letter of December 26th gave me very 
great pleasure. I regret that mine, the one I 
wrote you during late events, gave you some pain. 
I was naturally uneasy about the ardor of your age 
and your ideas. As for me, my age and my duty 
place me beyond the reach of the impetuosity which 
my affection made me dread in you. Man is doomed 
to undergo a host of evils. He cannot sacrifice him- 
self usefully at the moment he would be glad to do 
so ; he must abide the hours of Providence, steering 



114 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

clear of all that could compromise honor and con- 
science, two goods which must ever remain intact, 
because they are the property of God. How glad I 
should have been to have had you by me at this 
painful time, and to pour out my soul to you ! Such 
was not, however, the will of God. He sent you to 
a distance, some days previously, as though He wanted 
to keep you out of danger, and Himself feared the 
ardor of your youth and sentiments. 

These precautions of Providence are not rare in the 
case of those He loves specially. And who is there 
who is not so loved? He sees us all as though each 
of us was alone in the world. This is a miracle of 
goodness of which we can form but a dim notion, 
even by studying those minute events which go to 
make up our interior and exterior life, for God con- 
ceals Himself as far as possible; He is afraid we 
should see too much of Him, and that our liberty 
should take His loving intervention to ask. 

It is upon Him, my dear friend, that we must 
throw ourselves in presence of the miseries of this 
world, which become more evident as we advance in 
life. 

The French gentry, seeing the gulf it had created 
beneath it by its unbelief, and by the contempt of all 
religious liberty, has recoiled through sheer terror, 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 115 

and thrown its political creed into the fire ; so that 
one is at a loss to see what it has to-day except the 
instinct of material safety. God is inflicting just 
punishment upon it, and He is doubtless punish- 
ing it in order to enlighten it. For no country 
can live without an educated class, especially when 
that educated class is the only living and powerful 
nobility which exists within it. The gentry cannot 
consequently perish : but they must reform, must bid 
adieu to the deplorable ignorance of the things of 
God in which they have lived for the last sixty 
years : must lead the illiterate classes on to truth by 
the teaching of doctrine backed up by the infinitely 
more efficacious teaching of example. 

Wherefore, my dear friend, thither all our efforts 
ought to be directed, because this is our only hope. 
Our country is lost unless it return to religion. We 
shall doubtless have new efforts, but these efforts will 
be barren so long as it shall not have opened its ey?s 
to the light which falls, through the Gospel and 
Jesus Christ, from eternity. 

You are called, my child, to do your part in this 
regeneration, and this thought ought to console you 
for everything, or at least give you strength to un- 
dergo everything. As for myself, I experience inde- 
scribable joy at the thought that for twenty-seven 
10* 



116 LETTERS TO YO UNG MEN. 

years, since the day of my first consecration to God, 
I have not uttered a word, nor written a line the 
object of which was not to communicate to France 
this spirit of life, and to communicate it in an accept- 
able form, that is to say, with gentleness, moderation, 
and patriotism. You will one day do the same. Pre- 
pare yourself for it by constant watchfulness over 
yourself and your passions. If no beautiful day is 
ever again to dawn upon our country, at least the day 
of God will dawn upon our soul ; upon your soul 
and mine, which God has united despite disparity of 
age, because it is a privilege of divine love to ignore 
time! 



XXXV. 



®nx Sfonritjirattott to be wnrnjltt out wlm 
tue nn, mx& not ttetwhm. 

G-and, January 26, 1852. 
My dear Friend, 

I AM not of opinion that you ought to quit your 
present position under pretext of coming and 
dying at the seminary. Even were your health hope- 
lessly gone, still I should see no motive for this 
heroism. What good do you expect to do at the 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 117 

seminary which you could not do where God has put 
you ? Nothing prevents you from loving God, from 
praying to Him, from serving Him according to your 
strength, and perhaps at the seminary your union 
with Him would meet with still greater obstacles. 
We easily imagine that places give us what we have 
not got : we cry out for a rule when we have not got 
one, and when we have one we find it uncomfortable 
and ineffectual. We are thus the plaything of our 
imagination. One man fancies that if he were trans- 
ported to the mountain of Kolsim, in Egypt, in the 
midst of St. Anthony's desert, he would become a 
saint ; and if perchance God should bring his dream 
about, he would be unable to live away from men 
more than a week, perhaps more than a day. Put 
away then, my dear child, vague prospects and 
changes. Stay where you are as long as you are 
wanted, and as long as your health is not sufficiently 
sound. 

I write to you from Gand, a town in Belgium, 
where we have a house. I came intending to visit 
our convents in the northern provinces, namely, in 
Belgium, Holland, England, and Ireland. They are 
provinces upon which we count for the general resto- 
ration of our order, and I thought it very useful to 
get an accurate knowledge of them^ especially as w$ 



118 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

are just about holding our first provincial chapter in 
France. 

I shall give no conferences this Lent. Our General 
was desirous there should be none, on account of the 
present political state of things, and I was myself of 
the same way of thinking. My position as the 
representative and restorer of an order required a 
prudence of conduct of which I could not lose sight. 

Adieu, my dear child, love our good God well, 
pray for me, and be persuaded that I shall always 
love you. 



xxxyi. 

Stondott.— 3fft* Uftoltifude of |ioun Storiettes. 

Hinckley, March 7, 1852. 

I ANSWER your letter, my dear friend, from 
Hinckley. It is a little town in Leicestershire, 
where we have a convent and a few fathers. I got 
here last night, after spending two days in London 
without seeing any one, in order to examine at leisure 
the exterior of the town, which is large and fine in 
parts, but appears to me inferior to Paris in many 
respects. Size itself, when it is as it were boundless, 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 119 

detracts from beauty ; it is then but a heap of houses 
without end or harmony, in which one detects no 
order, and when these houses are in a cold right line 
and all alike, as is the case with London in many 
quarters, their immensity tires and oppresses, without 
giving pleasure either to body or mind. 

The fine part of London is fortunately confined to 
a quarter which is vast without being oppressive, and 
in which the palaces, parks, spacious streets, West- 
minster Abbey, the Houses of Parliament, and the 
Thames, produce by their proximity to each other a 
very admirable effect. It will be a pleasure to me to 
revisit it on my return. 

Nothing, my dear friend, stands in the way of 
your entering the third order ; it will, I think, be a 

very good thing, and since the Curd of has 

faculties for these cases, you will do well to take 
advantage of the circumstance. As to the expiatory 
association you speak of, and which has spread rapidly, 
it is certainly a very pious confraternity, only I am 
slightly afraid of it. To offer one's self to God, body 
and soul, in order to expiate the sins of the world, is 
to expose one's self to great and painful sacrifices, in 
which we all participate, it is true, a little, but less 
fully when we do not ask God to give us a greater 
share than would fall to us by the general laws of 



120 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

His justice. For my own part, I should be afraid 
of going too far ; my cross already seems to me at 
times weighty, and God grant I may bear it as He 
wishes ! Still, it is possible, that the very state of 
your health and the trials of your position, render 
you desirous of bearing others ; reflect upon it before 
God, for I am disinclined to say either yes or no. 

The great number of already existing confraterni- 
ties need not be a consideration ; the world is wide. 
It suffices for a thing to be good for a certain number 
of souls in order for them to put it in practice with 
fruit ; we must never forget the beautiful saying of 
St. Paul, "Multiformis gratia Dei." 

God makes Himself all to all ; He lends Himself 
in a certain sort to the caprices of souls, and associa- 
tion in Him, under whatever form, always' pleases 
Him. 

I am gratified at the news you give me of the state 
of your soul. Keep yourself very calm, abandoning 
yourself entirely to our Lord ; He alone knows what 
we require, He will guide us better than any one 
else, and especially better than ourselves. 

I embrace you right affectionately. Pray for me. 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 121 



XXXVII. 

(Knjjland and \\\\ &utiersitg of ©xford. 

Oxford, March 16, 1852. 
My deae Friend, 

I HAVE on my table your two letters, both of 
which in turn brought rne some consolation on my 
foreign pilgrimage: I now see that you love me. 
Never give way to the idea that your letters or your 
visits are irksome to me, or that you have to consult 
anything else in them but your heart. You may be 
sure that mine will respond. I got your letter yester- 
day, on my return to London, together with a large 
number of others which had been awaiting me ten 
days. I spent the last ten days in visiting very 
beautiful things : first of all, two of our monasteries, 
one situated at Hinckley, a little town in Leicester- 
shire, the other in Leicester itself; then a mansion in 
which I received hospitality, the Cistercian convent 
called Mount St. Bernard, Alton Towers, belonging 
to Lord Shrewsbury, Cheadle church, a Passion ist 
monastery not far from there, the town of Birming- 
ham, and lastly the Catholic college of St. Mary's, 






122 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

Oscott. All this, which says but little to you, said 
much to me, and taught me a great deal touching the 
marvellous growth of the Catholic Church in England. 
You can form no idea of the magnificence of these 
establishments, of the beauty of their situation, nor of 
the touching sight afforded by this resurrection of the 
works and arts of the faith upon an heretical soil. 
This, you are told, is a church built by a converted 
minister ; this monastery was built in the solitude by 
such and such a gentleman ; this chapel upon a rock 
contains a picture of our Lord's Passion, and Protes- 
tants themselves come here to sing hymns; this cross 
is the first which has appeared for three centuries 
upon a high road. 

After ten days thus employed, I came alone to Ox- 
ford to rest, and to write in peace to those I love. 

What a sweet and lovely place this Oxford is ! 
Picture to yourself, in a plain surrounded with hills, 
and watered by two rivers, an assemblage of Gothic 
and Greek monuments, churches, colleges, quadrangles, 
porticoes scattered about profusely, but gracefully, in 
noiseless streets terminating in vistas of trees and 
meadows. All these monuments devoted to letters 
and sciences have their gates open ; the stranger may 
walk in just as into his own house, because it is the 
resort of the beautiful, for all who appreciate it. One 






LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 123 

crosses silent quadrangles, meeting here and there 
young men wearing the cap and gown ; no crowd, no 
noise ; a gravity in the air as well as in the walls darkened 
by age, for it seems to me that nothing is repaired 
here for fear of committing a crime against antiquity. 
And still the most exquisite cleanness is visible from 
top to bottom of the monuments. I never saw any- 
where such well preserved monuments with such a 
beautiful air of decay. In Italy the buildings look 
young ; here it is time which shows, without dilapi- 
dation, simply in majesty. 

The town is small, and still it does not seem to 
want in size : the number of the monuments makes 
up for houses, and gives it a look of vastness. How 
my heart yearned for you, as I walked solitary amidst 
these young men of your own age ! Not one of them 
knew or cared for me : I was to them as though I 
did not exist, and more than once tears started into 
my eyes at the thought that elsewhere I should have 
met friendly looks. 

London is in parts magnificent ; but in all the rest 
there reigns a huge and gloomy uniformity ; its air is 
full of smoke, and its insignificant immensity lacks 
the grace of a thing with finish. Its population, al- 
though brisk, but badly hides a deal of misery; 

nothing appears greater than this people in its insti- 
ll 



124 LETTERS TO TOUNG MEN. 

tutions ; nothing more puny as you look at them in 
the streets. 

I shall not be going to Ireland, I have reasons for 
shortening my exile. I intend returning to the Con- 
tinent on the 22d of this month, and going to our 
convent of Chalais by the Rhine and Strasbourg. I 
shall there pass Easter-tide, and probably one or two 
months, if not the whole summer. What joy it 
would give me to see you on your return to Paris. 
Could you not come back by the Rhone and Saone ? 
The rail makes that way easy and short. Still takj 
care not to give displeasure to your family by asking 
it to let you take this road. The more it loves you, 
the more it must fear seeing you indifferent about 
delay in returning to it. 

You must not be surprised at finding yourself over- 
matched in your doctor. It requires twenty years 
to make a good controversialist. As to his opinion 
about the impossibility of being chaste, it is upset by 
the experience of a multitude of men who live so by 
sheer love of God, and who find in their sacrifice a 
flood of tender joys in w T hich they never think of 
regretting the rapid and painful intoxication of the 
senses. Physicians think they know man; they 
know nothing but the corruptible part of him. When 
people have not taken the pains to overcome their 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 125 

passions, and when they are unequal to the under- 
standing of chaste joys, they console themselves in 
their vices by declaring them necessary, and cloak the 
testimony of a corrupt heart with the name of 
science. Do not be down-hearted at the slender suc- 
cess of your controversies ; you are as yet too young 
to wield the arms of truth ; you will one day do it 
successfully if you go on wishing to be useful to God 
and your fellows. 

I rejoice at the thought that I am nearing you, and 
that we can give each other our hand, you from the 
Pyrenees, I from the Alps. 



XXXVIII. 

%ixm to n <$tUh& — f ei[tts mu\ lopes. 

Flavigny, April 22, 1852. 

ACCORDING to my calculations, my dear friend, 
you ought to be at home now, since you told 
me that on the first of this month you would be 
journeying northwards. But you are such a hand at 
stopping on the way, for instance at Biarritz, to enjoy 
the things you like, that it is excusable to suppose 
you will take three weeks in getting from Bayonne to 



126 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

Paris, just as in the good old times of our fathers. 
So you are back at last, but still far from me, and 
you hold out but very little hope of my seeing you 
before the next vacation ! If I were in exile, it 
would be still worse. I must then console myself 
with the idea that you are only eight hours distant, 
upon the soil we both love, and must wait patiently 
for you. Only, pray just remember, now and again, 
that your arrival here will make me really happy, 
and in the meantime let me have particulars of your 
return and of your health. 

Tell me whether your rambles and the warm air 
of the Pyrenees have given you that full and comfort- 
able feeling which is the greatest sign of real health. 
Is your breathing quite free ? Can you go up and 
down without any difficulty ?, Are you satisfied with 
yourself, soul and body ? 

As for myself, I am nearing the hour which will 
tell me I am fifty. I was born on the twelfth of 
May, 1802. What a glorious anniversary ! I am 
already seven years older than my father was when 
he died. He was only forty-five. Poor little life ! 
At my father's rate I ought to have been dead seven 
years ago ; and in ten years hence, if God grant them 
to me, I shall be an old man. However, I am ready 
to die ; I have done what I wanted here below, and 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 127 

the rest of my life is good for nothing except to lend 
authority to the past. You, on the contrary, my 
dear friend, are coming forward. I hope to see you 
such as you promise to be, a useful, honorable, and 
distinguished man. You will have certain snares to 
avoid ; there is in your soul wherewith to make many 
mistakes ; but they will, I trust, be generous, of that 
kind which God forgives, and which He almost likes, 
so dear is generosity to Him. 

Within the last four years I have seen much that 
has disgusted me with men ; you still remain to me 
as a pure image of the future, a hope. But you must 
know how to be moderate in order to be constant. Im- 
petuosity and exaggeration frequently lead to sudden 
changes which surprise everybody, whilst moderation 
in opinions and acts easily holds the ground chosen. 
Above everything, be kind-hearted; kind-hearted- 
ness being that which most likens us to God and dis- 
arms man. You have traces of it in your soul, but 
they are furrows which we cannot sufficiently deepen. 
Your lips and eyes are not yet as kindly, as they 
might be, and no art but the interior culture of kind- 
heartedness can give them that expression. 

A kind and sweet way of judging others ends by 

stamping itself upon the countenance, and by giving 

it a look which draws all hearts. I have never felt 
11* 



128 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

any affection but for kind-heartedness rendered sensible 
in the features. Everything without it leaves me 
cold ; even heads which indicate genius ; but the first 
comer who looks kind-hearted, touches and attracts 
me. 

Since, then, you must be kind-hearted, you will 
come and see me in this dear solitude, in the midst 
of my children. We are twenty-four at table : to- 
morrow we shall be twenty-seven. This is the first 
time we have had such a numerous family in one 
single convent. But we are also going to hold our 
first provincial chapter, after thirteen years at the 
work of restoring our order in France. We have 
had more novices than usual ; among others an attache* 
of one of the embassies, who has gone the round of 
the world, and who came to us from Syria, got up 
after the Oriental fashion. He produced a prodigious 
sensation at Flavigny ; such that it was almost be- 
lieved we had converted the Grand Turk. When 
you come, my dear child, no one will take you for 
the Grand Turk, but we shall all take you for a good 
and amiable Frenchman. Come, then. Perhaps I 
am destined to pass here, not far from my birth-place, 
and from the town of my youth, a long time, and the 
last of all. Your shadow and your memory must not 
be absent. I call you to my solitude, like St. Basil 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 129 

used to call his friends to the monastery of Pontus, 
whither he went to look for quiet in his old age. 
You will find no St. Basil, but a soul which loves 
you, which has often told you so, and is never tired 
of doing so. Adieu, do not forget to remember me to 
your dear S., I am sorry I see him no longer with a 
few other little penitents, who used to console me. I 
would tell him to embrace you for me if any one else 
could do it as I should like to do it. 



XXXIX. 

otoaftmt in Sitorfi — <J[taMpir, 

Flavigny, May 31, 1851. 

I WAS unwilling to scold you for the sore throat 
you caught through your own fault, and which is 
now far away : but I will scold you for the doubts 
these little accidents give you touching your vocation. 
If you had seen me at your own age, you would never 
have thought I could live. I was thin and pale ; my 
color came and went at every turn ; I could not walk 
for a quarter of an hour in the streets of Paris without 
feeling extreme and painful fatigue : and yet, to-day 
no one can enjoy sounder or brisker health. Time 



130 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

and sobriety of living have strengthened everything 
in me ; head, chest, muscles : the same will be the case 
with you, if you do not keep too late hours, and are 
careful not to work too hard. I say nothing of the 
rest, because you are a good pious young man, and 
your only enemy is excess of intellectual activity. 
Two of my friends, one at fifty, the other at forty, 
have become infirm on account of over-study. Don't 
you do the same. Give time his rightful due, as he 
will not let offenders off unpunished. What should 
I have gained to-day by having half-killed myself for 
the sake of doing things quickly ? Go to work gently, 
and be convinced that your larynx and everything 
else will become the very humble servants of your 
good desires. Besides, my dear friend, however pre- 
cious health may be, it is not Hercules who does the 
most : a generous soul in a poor little body is mistress 
of the world. 

I am making great preparations for your reception. 
We have at Flavigny a little wood at the foot of a 
long terrace, formerly the rampart of the town : a part 
of the little wood ran along the high-road, without 
any kind of enclosure : we have had the edge of it 
made steep ; it is composed of very hard and tolerably 
high rock, and by means of a little walling we have 
succeeded in shutting ourselves up at home. We have 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 131 

also finished making paths in the interior of the wood, 
and everything has become quite worth your seeing, 
and very desirous of seeing you. 

Stone benches, slightly rustic, have been put up 
and down, but in the shade, under rocks, so that you 
may sit down there when you are tired, and meditate 
quietly in gentle breezes which gather up the per- 
fumes of our trees on their way. 

I am ornamenting the house to the best of my 
power, but in a simple and natural manner. The 
workmen are very glad of the few days' work it gives 
tbem. It is the duty of every proprietor to give work 
according to the extent of his property, and religious 
are more strictly bound to do this than others, because 
they ought to be more charitable. A man finds in 
the heart of the poor, what he does not find in his 
own purse. 

I wish you a good Whitsuntide : may God make 
you gentle and humble, and may He keep me the 
share I have in your heart, and for which you have a 
great return ! 



132 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN, 

XL. 

ffipoit tk (ttotutitrt 0J §hrint flromitent^ 

Flavignt, Jime 3, 1852. 
FTTHE very day you were writing to me, my dear 
I friend, I was obeying the same impulse ; and 
you must have got my letter at the same time that 
your own came to console me. I fear, however, lest 
I may have missed you on account of your change of 
residence, and consequently, independently of the 
pleasure I take in it, I must send you a few lines. 
Besides, I have to clear myself with you, since you 
seem to construe my absence into insensibility. At 
no time, believe me, would a journey to Paris have 
afforded me more pleasure. I had, at last, my spirit- 
ual family, and a greater number of very dear friends 
than ever. To pass the remainder of my life there, 
after so much wandering and agitation, I should con- 
sider a blessing ; but our Good Master has not willed 
it. He doubtless saw that I loved and was loved too 
much; and He wanted to tear me from the place 
where He has never left me any number of years 
together. I am tied down by very weighty and very 
various matters at this moment, and although I seem 
free to go where I like, the reality is that I am obey- 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 133 

ing what I consider imperative duties. When I re- 
signed my seat in the Constituent Assembly in 1848, 
no one understood me : to-day who regrets my having 
done so ? What good could I have done in that resort 
of powerless passions, and what thanks do I not owe 
God for having shown me early that that was not my 
place? In 1836, when I left at the outset the pulpit 
of Notre Dame, in order to go to Rome, I was no 
better understood, and yet I came back stronger, with 
more authority, surer of bringing the work to a con- 
clusion, and besides, I restored in the interval, a reli- 
gious order in France. 

Was this losing time? To-day other previsions 
keep me away, and however painful it be to live away 
from you in particular, I make this painful sacrifice 
to my conscience. Beautiful things do not, as you 
state, pass away ; but sweet things are mingled with 
bitterness, and we must learn to put up with these 
alternations of enjoyment and separation. God has 
tutored me gradually to solitude, abandonment, and 
absence, to the ebb and flow of everything : and with- 
out having a stoical heart I am better adapted than 
others for so chequered a lot. Don't be angry with 
me then ! I clasp you for ever to my bosom, like a 
well-loved child. We shall see one another here and 
there; we will take the days God may give us 



184 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

together, we will engrave them in our memory. I 
will come and see you, and you me, as we may be 
able, until at last eternity shall give us, in presence 
of God, the power of never being absent from one 
another. That time will be here very quickly ! 

I am glad you are beginning to visit our house of 
the Carmes. Is your new apartment roomier than 
the last ? It seemed to me that you had not enough 
air for your lungs. The house you speak of must be 
a new one, that is to say, narrow, split up into tiny 
holes without breadth, length, or height, which our 
architects have the heartlessness to call rooms. Are 
you comfortable in it ? 

I abhor tyranny ; but if ever I were king, my first 
decree would be to define the space a Frenchman 
requires in order to live. The rapacity of builders 
will soon bring our houses down to those cages of the 
times of Louis XI. in which people used to shut up 
those they didn't like. That kind of thing is very 
much cried down, and people don't seem to imagine 
that it was then only an exception, and that to-day it is 
the rule. Talk to me, then, about your cage, tell me 
whether you can stand up straight in it, lie down at 
full length, and receive a friend there, three very 
precious things in this world. 

I should never get tired of treating you to my 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 135 

small talk. But I must leave you for my friends 
the Hindoos, of whom I am at present reading some- 
thing in my capacity of a Catholic monk. Adieu ! 
then, my dear child, and don't scold me any more 
for not loving you enough. 



XLI. 



Against fatting ojf in i\\t Jtcromplisltment of 
Christian gutiea. 

Flavigny, June 21, 1852. 
My dear Friend, 

"TTOU have written me a good letter, for which I 
I thank you. You must not be surprised at your 
liability to fall off: in this we are all alike. Stability 
here below is a chimera. We push forward, we fall 
back, we sail with the current, we row against it; 
such is the summary of our life. Besides, your health 
is a natural cause of weakness and remissness, which 
I thoroughly understand. The most painful morti- 
fications are those which we do not ourselves will, 
which neither begin nor end where we want them. 
A man may have made interior and exterior acts of 
Irimility for weeks : an occasion presents itself, and 

a simple want of regard in another puts him out, 
12 



186 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

As for work, it seems to me there is one description 
very easy, and not fatiguing ; it is reading : not ran- 
dom reading, but serious and persistent reading. "We 
thus acquire, especially at your age, when the memory 
is still young and vigorous, a vast amount of knowl- 
edge, almost as a pastime. The Imitation tells us 
that we ought always to be either reading, writing, 
meditating, or praying : "aut legendo, swibendo, medi- 
tando, vet orando." The alternate use of these kinds 
of work, fills up and gives a charm to life. Reading 
suffices to occupy the mind, to nourish it, to elevate 
and purify it: and I have never been able to under- 
stand how wealthy men, with a library at hand, could 
feel time on their hands, or even become corrupt. 
Idleness is the fruitful mother of corruption, and 
reading, although not hard work, suffices to put 
idleness to flight. 

You must pay no attention to the trouble and 
darkness which comes over your mind at times. We 
must betimes feel our own emptiness, and see the 
astounding misery of our nature, as well as its fright- 
ful corruption. There is not a single one of us in 
whom there are not the makings of a saint as well as 
of a ruffian. This is what explains those monsters 
of debauchery and cruelty. At bottom they were not 
perhaps naturally more wicked than others, but 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 137 

imagination and power put an end to all restraint. 
The devil is as bad as he is, simply because he is 
highly endowed and knows jio moral restraint. 

I recommend you to be always regular in your 
confessions and communions, and generally in all the 
exercises prescribed you. This subjection is very 
useful, although we frequently imagine it would be 
better to follow the irregular impulse of sentiment. 

Adieu, my dear child, do not be down-hearted, 
take every day as it comes, and serve God. Don't 
make plans. God will call you at His own and your 
own time. This is the most simple, the safest, and 
the gentlest course. 



XLII. 

®jj<m cjfonjetjjuttuss of the IKftorliL 

Flavigny, July 6, 1852. 
My dear Friend, 

I AM setting out for Toulouse, and shall not be 
back at Flavigny before the 27th of July. We 
shall be very near "one another for a few days, and 
still we shall not meet. "What you tell me of your 
absence from Paris goes to my heart, except one point 



138 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

upon which I cannot agree with you. You fear lest 
I may be forgotten. Alas ! my dear friend, the 
sweetest thing in the world is to be forgotten by men, 
except by those who love us and are loved by us. 
The rest in noticing us unsettle us more than they 
give us joy ; and when we have completed our task, 
ploughed up a furrow, great or small, in which we 
have sown good seed, the greatest satisfaction is to 
leave it in the hands of Providence, and disappear in 
His bosom. Therefore the thought of being forgotten 
does not affect me : I rather rejoice at it, and the only 
thing which gives me any pain in the separation, 
beyond being deprived of my friends, is the thought 
that perhaps I might be of use to a few young souls 
like your own. But no man can do all good at once; 
what he does on one side he loses on another, and God 
alone embraces at once in the work of His goodness, 
all times and all places. 



LETTERS TO TO UNG MEN. 139 



XLIII. 

djjjommunitj life- 

Flaviqny, November 3, 1852. 
My dear Friexd, 

I WAS doubting what had become of you, when your 
kind little letter came and relieved me of my anx- 
iety. You are quite right in believing that community 
life is a source of great strength, and that it is the 
surest road to being useful and spiritual. Isolation 
confines us to ourselves : and individually we are very 
puny both in point of intellect and virtue. By being 
many under one rule, we assist, enlighten, support, 
and edify one another ; the strength of each individual 
is increased tenfold, and the least takes a certain 
standing beside the one who surpasses him 

I am daily discovering, in the souls which God 
throws across my path, the sacred flame which poor 
M. de la Mennais had kindled around him ; nearly 
all have, notwithstanding the break-up, retained a 
certain remnant of that first communion ; the same is 
the case with all those who associate for a common 
end under one chief and one law. It is the effect of 

a will of Providence, or rather better of that great 
12* 



140 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

and mysterious trinity in unity, which is the essence 
of the Divine Being, and to which we are in a manner 
likened by our feeble associations in this world. 



xliy. 
m f efaxltment of Heart. 

Toulouse, November 9, 1853. 

I WAS daily expecting, my dear friend, the news 
of your entrance at which your letter 

has just brought me. You must not be surprised at 
the pain- of the beginning. I myself, even at my age, 
never enter upon a new position, were it but the 
foundation of a house, without experiencing sadness 
and melancholy. The very change of place is painful 
to me. How much more so a total change of life ! 
You are passing from extreme liberty, with every 
kind of affection around you, to a rule under which 
actions, hours, and relations are regulated and con- 
trolled. It would take much less to sadden nature, 
independently of the question of one's vocation by 
God, and one's dispositions. Jesus Christ Himself, 
on the eve of His sacrifice, felt depressed, and He 
asked God to take the chalice from His lips. What 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 141 

must be the case with us ? Afterwards the rule 
becomes sweet : the animal part of our being bends to 
it ; the soul gathers peace from it ; she finds that it 
puts her in the way of acquiring every virtue. 

As to the impression produced upon you by certain 
doctrines heard during your retreat, you must bear in 
mind that no individual preacher and no book is 
infallible. There are many ways of setting forth the 
doctrines of perfection, and those of a particular man 
or of a particular order may, without being blamable, 
easily be unsuited to the spiritual taste God has 
given us. 

Detachment is undoubtedly a law of the Gospel, 
and an essential of perfection : but it does not thence 
follow that we are to love no reasonable creature with 
a love more special than the one we are bound to 
show to everybody. Well-regulated affections, that 
is, those made subordinate to the law of God and to 
the love we owe Him above all things, are no bar to 
holiness. The lives of the saints, beginning with 
that of our Lord, are full of such affections. No one 
will venture to say, I think, that our Lord did not 
love St. John and Magdalen with tenderness and 
predilection, and it would be singular if Christianity, 
founded upon the love of God and men, ended in 
nothing but dryness of soul towards all that is not 



142 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

God. The thing is that passion often finds its way 
into friendships, and this is what makes them danger- 
ous and hurtful. Passion upsets both the senses and 
the reason, and too frequently ends in evil and in sin. 
This is why the masters of the spiritual life recom- 
mend detachment, but not want of affection. Unselfish- 
ness, far from destroying love, increases and feeds it. 
What ruins love is selfishness, and not the love of 
God ; and there never was on earth more lasting, 
purer, or more tender love, than that which the saints 
cherished in their hearts, at once empty and full, 
empty of themselves and full of God. 

I got to Toulouse on the 29th of October, at eleven 
at night, and on the morrow, according to my habit 
of putting off nothing which may be done, I took 
possession of our house, which is quiet, convenient, 
and sufficiently religious in look. Despite the eager- 
ness of many persons to serve us, and show us kind- 
ness, I was somewhat sad. It is hard to find one's 
self at my age in a place with which one has had no 
previous connection, where one finds no personal 
memories, none of one's friends. Toulouse is, it is 
true, the cradle of St. Dominic, and the body of St. 
Thomas Aquinas rests there. That ought to be quite 
sufficient, but nature will always have a little of its 
own way. The saints were the only people who 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 143 

found in prayer wherewith to transform every place 
into a paradise. 

Our chapel is not yet blessed and inhabited by our 
Lord. We are waiting for the archbishop, who will 
not be here until the tenth of this month. We shall 
have a little feast for our first friends. It will 
probably take place on Friday the 18th, the day of 
the dedication of the Basilica of St. Peters. 

Pray for me often. I have great trials as well as 
great consolations. One of my trials is your absence. 
I fear I shall not have the happiness of seeing you 
for eight or ten months. Between this and then you 
will become holier and consequently more lovable. 
You do not say whether your friend is with you. I 
embrace you both, in order to prevent you from being 
jealous any more. Adieu. 



XLV. 

Hgon JStedfastes in fljonmrtioiT. 

Flavigny, March 22, 1853. 

THE news you give me of M. Ozanam is a source 
of great affliction to me. He will be a very 
painful loss to the Catholics of France, and to me in 
particular. He belonged to the few eminent men 



144 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

who in France have, despite public vicissitudes, held 
by old and honorable convictions. His loss will go 
to thin ranks already scant, but he will leave them in 
a memory like his life, pure. You must not despair, 
my dear child, because the battalion of disinterested 
and faithful souls is so small in this world, even 
among those who have a common faith in God and 
in His Christ : this has ever been and ever will be 
the case until the end. The majority of men are 
weak and vacillating; they yield to the current which 
at a given moment sweeps over and carries away the 
world. Unshaken convictions dwell only in pro- 
found minds, and in hearts finely tempered by the 
hand of God. Do we belong to these latter ? God 
only knows. But however great our obligation of 
judging ourselves diffidently, we must at least aim at 
one thing, namely, to become men of strong, pure, 
and disinterested convictions, and frequently call to 
mind the beautiful saying of St. Paul : " Gloria nostra 
hcec est, quod in hoc mundo conversati sumus in simpli- 
citate cordis, et sinceritate Dei." * You are young : 
you will see more uplifting and downfalling than I 
shall see henceforth : nerve yourself against these 
shocks, and know, my child, that £he surest way to be 

* "Our glory is this, that we have conversed in ibis world 
in simplicity of heart and in the sincerity of God/ r 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. | 145 

invariably consistent is to shun ambition, and that a 
man is not ambitious when he knows how to circum- 
scribe his tastes, and to seek his happiness in God, in 
study, and in a few souls which love him. I belong 
to the latter as regards you. But not being of your 
age, you will lose me before the end of your perils. 
May my memory afford you a little light from afar ! 



XLVI. 

$aint Dftaximin'a and ^ahtte-igaum? — %\\ 
for (Sod's <Storg> 

Chalais, April 28, 1853. 
Q\ INCE I got your kind and dear letter of Easter 
Js3 Tuesday, my dear friend, I have made a little 
journey in the south, as far as a place in Provence 
called Bargemont, which is almost at the extremity 
of France, towards Nice. I went to see a chapel and 
a piece of land which has been offered us for the erec- 
tion of a convent of our order, but I did not think it 
would suit us. On that occasion I revisited Mar- 
seilles, Toulon, Hyeres, and visited at the foot of the 
Sainte-Baume, our ancient church of Saint Maximin, 
the finest our order possessed in France. It is a 
basilica without a transept, and Gothic withal, which 



146 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

gives it quite a peculiar character of simplicity and 
grandeur. It contains some very exquisite wood 
carvings, in which one of our lay-brothers has repre- 
sented the greater part of our saints with appropriate 
symbols. The head of St. Mary Magdalen is pre- 
served here in a crypt. She lived a number of years 
near here in the grotto of Sainte-Baume. I could 
not ascend to Sainte-Baume, and contented myself 
with venerating the saint's head. You know that St. 
Mary Magdalen is, together with St. Cecily, the pro- 
tectress of our order : the one representing penance, 
the other the Christian arts, and these are, in fact, two 
gifts which have been continued to our order in a re- 
markable degree. 

Ought I to tell you that I was everywhere received 
with great marks of sympathy ? I am sometimes as- 
tonished at it. At Draguignan, where it was known 
I was to pass, I found at the cure's house a large 
number of men, the mayor, the secretary-general of 
the prefecture, and outside a large crowd. This k 
the first time I have seen so many people come together 
to see me, and at such a distance from Paris. I enjoy 
this kind of thing simply as a sign that I am loved, 
and not through pride. Besides, how quickly does 
popular curiosity subside, and to what is it owing ? 
God has thrown me into peculiar circumstances, which 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 147 

have formed a something more or less strange which 
goes to make up my physiognomy. What moves me 
is to receive from time to time proofs that my voice 
and my writings have touched souls. Nothing is 
comparable to this enjoyment, and it is an entirely 
pious one, as God is too far concerned in it to allow 
our thoughts any other turn than towards Him, the 
Father of Light. 

In your last letter you told me things which moved 
me : but everything you say easily makes its way to 
my heart, and makes me feel that I love you. 

My stay at Chalais, which I reached yesterday, will 
not be long. I shall be leaving on Ascension-day for 
Flavigny. There is still a little snow here, and it is 
tolerably cold. With the exception of the snow we 
were scarcely better off in Provence, where the dry 
and cutting mistral wind contrasted strangely with 
the orange-trees and flowers in full bloom. Alas, 
nothing is pure and perfect here below ! We must 
be perpetually feeling the sting somewhere. 

By the way, I do not know when I shall enjoy the 
pleasure of seeing you. I wish to return to Paris, 
even were it only casually, as late as possible, not- 
withstanding the friends I have there, to meet whom 
is always a great consolation to me. There is too 

much to sadden me there, and I have other reasons 
13 



148 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

for avoiding interviews. Solitude is a great preserv- 
ative against numbers of perils. 

My dear child, let me hear from you, talk to me 
freely of all that goes on in your heart, and know 
that I love you, if it is necessary to repeat it. 



XLYII. 

%Mtt k a gamtjg jpimfar. 

Flavigny, June 3, 1853. 
My dear Friend, 

I HAVE heard with pleasure of your appearance 
in the pulpit of X , and of your intention 

to preach there on the five Sundays of the Month of 
Mary. The ministry of the word is a great and a 
difficult one. A great deal of study and a great 
many attempts are necessary to make an eloquent and 
even a passable preacher. Many young ecclesiastics 
break down on the way, because, when once brought 
out, as people say, they give up reading and medita- 
tion, leading an indifferent and nomad life, and are 
thus used up in a few years. This is owing to the 
difficulty of sharing one's life between two things so 
different as the activity of the pulpit and the labori- 
ous repose of the cell. Activity nearly always gets 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 149 

the upper hand, and very quickly exhausts itself. 
Spcik little ; give much time to preparation. Read 
the Holy Scriptures over and over again : do it inces- 
santly. With the Scriptures and the Summa of St. 
Thomas a man can outdo everything. 

I prayed for the success of your sermon as you 
a°ked me, and am glad to hear it did succeed. You 
have, as far as I can see, everything necessary to 
preach the word of God with fruit : firm faith, real 
piety, and disinterestedness, a desire that God should 
be known and loved, and finally natural gifts quite 
able to bear out those of grace. Work hard, and the 
talents given you will increase in proportion to the 
pains you take. ISTo amount of talent will go far 
unbacked by work. Work is the key to eloquence 
and knowledge, as well as to virtue. 



XLVIII. 

Wxz (Sratute-Cttartmtse — gad H00R8.— £qja- 
ratten front ^friends. 

Flavigny, June 30, 1853. 
My dear Friexd, 

SINCE the receipt of your dear and kind letter I 
have made a journey to Oullins and Chalais. We 



150 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

left Oullins with fifteen of our pupils and crossed from 
Chalais to the Grande-Chartreuse, a magnificent series 
of mountains and valleys unknown and unfrequented 
except by cows, wood-cutters, and forest-keepers : for 
the sake of accuracy, let me add, by the smugglers 
between France and Savoy. Every one goes to the 
Grande-Chartreuse by the two roads from Saint-Lau- 
rent-du-Pont and le Sappey, no one by the mysterious 
diagonal which cuts from Chalais across precipices, 
solitudes, magic sites, valleys dotted with meadows, 
and pine-clad rocks. I hope you will one day make 
this excursion with me. It is very different from 
Flavigny and its tiny woods, which still pleased 
you somewhat, and which I am about to leave for 
Mattaincourt, in Lorraine, where I am to preach the 
panegyric of the Blessed Peter Fourier, before I don't 
know how many bishops and a crowd of pilgrims. 
I intend publishing this discourse, and will send you 
a copy, however unworthy it be of your illustrious 
attention. 

I am not overpleased at the idea of your reading 
such books as those you mention to me. You are, it 
is true, no longer a child, but at every time of life 
poison is dangerous. What is there to read in Vol- 
taire after his dramatic works ? His Contes, his Dic- 
tionnaire Philosophique, his Essai sur les Moeurs de* 



LETTERS TO TO UNO MEN. 151 

nations, and that multitude of nameless pamphlets 
launched at every turn against the Gospel and the 
Church? Twenty pages enable us to judge of their 
literary worth and of their moral and philosophical 
poverty. I was between seventeen and eighteen when 
I read that series of mental debauchery, and I have 
never since been tempted to open a single volume, 
not because I was afraid of their doing me harm, but 
from a deep conviction of their worthlessness. Un- 
less, it be for purposes of reference w T ith a useful end, 
we must confine ourselves to the masterpieces of 
great names ; we have not time enough for the rest. 

We have consequently still less for those writings 
which are, as it were, the common sewers of the 
human intellect, and which, notwithstanding their 
flowers, contain nothing but frightful corruption. 
Just as a good man shuns the conversation of lost 
women and of dishonorable men; so a Christian 
ought to avoid reading works which have never done 
anything but harm to the human race. Rousseau is 
preferable to Voltaire: he has the sentiment of the 
beautiful and generous, and he does not despise his 
reader. But the charm of his writings, useful betimes 
to young men who respect nothing, is but little to a 
soul which possesses the knowledge and love of Jesus ' 
Christ. We read in the Life of St. Jerome that he 

13* 



152 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

was scourged by an angel, who whilst striking him, 
reproached him for reading Cicero with more ardor 
than the Gospel. How much more would your 
reading deserve this chastisement if God always 
showed us in this life what He thinks of our actions. 

The reproach you make me about the shortness of 
my letters is grounded upon another mistake. It is a 
very pleasing thing to write to those one loves ; and 
if life was intended simply for the enjoyment of law- 
ful pleasures, we should never tire, near or far, of 
conversing with those souls whose life forms part of 
ours. But, alas ! we have so much to do before 
satisfying the inclinations which have the greatest 
attraction for us ! When we read the lives of the 
saints, we are terrified at the small amount of time 
they gave to the simple relations of the heart, because 
they believed they were thereby depriving of their 
aid those who have no friends here below ! Forgive 
me my brevity, then. A sentence is short, but one 
sentence may suffice to tell us all that it is sweetest to 
hear, and it is enough for us to know that it is fre- 
quently repeated. 

A thousand things to your two friends. I embrace 
them with joy, if you will tolerate such a piece of 
audacity, as a mark of my tender affection for your- 
self. 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 153 



XLIX. 

Wo rejoice in £nam for (Sod's £afte.— ©| the 
flurit]| of lite lelijjiows ©oration, 

Flavigny, July 28, 185B. 

1 CANNOT possibly regret having kept you awake 
the other night, my dear friend, nor even having 
forfeited your praise. I feel that self-love has got 
very weak within me, and that I am no longer a prey 
to the fever of glory, if ever I had the misfortune to 
be so. But it is always a satisfaction to have spoken 
well of our good God, since well-speaking helps 
others on to well-doing. It is undoubtedly uncom- 
fortable that nature can have no share in this satisfac- 
tion : in what has it not got a share ? 

But when the groundwork of the sentiment is 
good, God certainly forgives the little frailty which 
is mixed up with it. What touches me is the thought 
of having suggested a few good thoughts to you, of 
having moved your soul, and next the expression of 
affection you let fall for myself. 

I am glad you have decided upon the order of 

X . There are several peculiarities oT your 

nature ill adapted for the religious life ; but you are 



154 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

young, and I have learnt by experience that a firm 
will, allied to a sincere and ardent faith, gradually 
softens down defects of temper, as well as the imper- 
fections of the mind. You will, I make no doubt, 
get the better of your rather lively spirit of indepen- 
dence ; our Lord will nail you sweetly to His cross, 
and you will forget there, in communion with souls 
and Himself, all the deceitful delights of this world. 
Entering into the priesthood with an idea other than 
that of sacrificing themselves to the mystery of the 
redemption, is what makes bad or indifferent priests ; 
everything else may be repaired or perfected but this 
original sin. Now, your intention is certainly pure, 
devoted and generous, and consequently the leaven 
of revolted nature in you will give way before the 
daily embrace of your crucifix. How I love you ! 
The reserve of age does not allow me to tell you so 
like I feel it. I love you at once like a friend and 
a child, because I am on the boundary whence we 
descry at the same moment the two extremities of 
life. 

I wish you every success in your examination for 
the licentiate. We are getting ready here for the 
feast of St. Dominic, which, on account of the 
blessing of our chapel, will be something great this 
year. Their Lordships, the Bishops of Dijon and 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 155 

Autun are coming, as well as M. de Montalembert, 
lie to whom you take off your hat in the street. 

Adieu, I embrace you with all the respect due to a 
man upon the eve of his licentiate. 



L. 

cjfmtmt totuum— Wat (&n ftflutidk 

Chalais, September 17, 1853. 
My dear Friend, 

O, INCE your last letter I have done a good deal of 
KJ work, and a great deal of travelling. We have 
taken possession of our college of Oullins, and I 
myself went to Toulouse to lay the foundation of a 
house of our order. His Lordship, the Archbishop 
of that town, consented very readily to it, and meas- 
ures are being taken to buy and get ready a house for 
us. Toulouse is the cradle of St. Dominic, and the 
tomb of St. Thomas Aquinas.* No town is to any 
religious order what this one is to us. Consequently, 
it seems to me, as though by settling there I crown my 
career, and that it will be the term of my labors and 
my life. It is probable that the business part of the 
matter will shortly be concluded, and I am hastening 



156 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

to make the provincial visit of our. houses in France 
and Belgium, in order to be free to devote myself to 
that work. 

I shall twice take Paris on my way, once immedi- 
ately, and a second time on my return from Belgium. 
The first time I shall spend but one day there ; the 
second, five or six. This is as much as to tell you 
that I promise myself the pleasure of seeing you be- 
fore my Toulouse exile. 

I learned yesterday, by a Lyons paper, the death 
of poor M. Ozanam. It really saddened me. We 
were associated in 1848 in the foundation of a com- 
mon work, and subsequently as well as previously we 
had remained true to the same motto, religion, toler- 
ance, civil and political liberty. 

This community of aim, and this steadfastness had 
become so rare, by the treason of so many others, that 
notwithstanding differences of opinion greater in 1848 
than at any other time, I felt myself bound by esteem 
and attachment to that generous soul. He is a link 
broken off from the short chain of good, talented, 
and Christian men. Shall we get others ? Shall we 
for our consolation see any more minds of that temper 
at the decline of our life ? Alas ! if such do arise, 
they will come but in distant contact with us ; I shall 
be too old to join my life to theirs, -they will see me 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 167 

disappear in my turn like a stranger. You alone, 
younger than myself, will give me a place in your 
memory, and you will remember for a few days that 
you knew me and I loved you. 

Your Thesis has come to hand. I do not con- 
gratulate you upon it, because I am no longer able, 
if ever I was, to pass an opinion upon the merits of 
a piece of jurisprudence ; but I do congratulate you 
for being on the eve of sacrificing to God the position 

you have reached in the world. C will have told 

you he saw me at Sens. He came to me like a re- 
minder of you, and whilst embracing him, I almost 
imagined I was clasping yourself to my breast. 
Adieu, then, until -Sunday ! It is a beautiful feast, 
but seems a long way off. 



LI. 

®pon <J[mnMip. 

Toulouse, December 28, 1853. 
My dear Friend, 

TT^HEN I compare your two last letters, it seems 
T T to me that you have already made great pro- 
gress in the spiritual life; you are beginning to get a 
little mastery over yourself, and what is incomparably 



168 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

more, to acquire that incomprehensible ease of com- 
munion with God, and tender union with Him. 

You are, it is true, still very weak with regard to 
creatures you love, and I don't know how far that is 
wrong when none of the rights of God are sacrificed 
by those affections : one single one of those affections 
appears dangerous, even when pure; it is that for 
those most loved by the world. The serpent is en- 
twined too closely round their necks, to allow us to 
draw near without dread ; we must always keep them 
at a safe distance. 

But are not friendship, the memory of beautiful 
haunts, the love of letters, all that superior part of 
the soul's enjoyments, the portico of the temple in 
which we adore God, and where we love Him more 
than our own life? To love God properly whilst 
loving something else is a great secret ; it is easy to 
put Him in the second place. This is a danger, I 
allow ; but when this danger is avoided by complete 
solitude of the heart outside God, ought we not to fear 
a greater ? In heaven we shall love God above all 
things : lost in the contemplation of His beauty and 
His goodness, it would seem that we should be able 
to look upon nothing else; but theology teaches us 
that in and even around Him we shall see all the 
companions of our eternal happiness. It tells us that 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 159 

their happiness will increase our own. God will be 
everything, but we shall be something. It is true 
that here below, creatures, even the best, are not com- 
pletely God's. The flesh, the world, and the devil 
have still a certain share in them, and by leaning on 
them we may fear falling away from God. This is 
one of the drawbacks of our present state, and perhaps 
the greatest ; but then God has His share in them too : 
He dwells in those souls which love Him, and which 
are His temples, according to the saying of St. Paul. 
We may then live in them with Him, and when I 
look into myself for the effect of my affections, they 
do not seem to me to lessen the almost invincible at- 
traction which draws me to a love of a much stronger 
and deeper character. We complain of the ingratitude 
and hardness we still find in the souls which love us 
most : we are right, God alone is fathomless tender- 
ness. Everywhere else we can touch the shore, a sor- 
rowful shore, where affections which we believed im- 
mortal suffer shipwreck ! But this terrible catastrophe 
overtakes those souls especially which live away from 
God, and in which love is a passion of the senses 
much more so than of the heart. Where the senses 
are silent," where fleshly comeliness no longer moves, 
the affections are infinitely more lasting. 

I have frequently noticed that young men abandoned 
14 



160 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

to their passions are, as it were, incapable of feeling 
and even of understanding friendship : love of the 
same sex necessarily implies purity, because there is 
behind this love nothing to attract the senses. This 
is the reason why real friendship is so scarce a thing. 
Hardly have young men come to the age when the 
passions are awakened, when they plunge headlong 
into disorder : their heart is dried up in the convul- 
sions of unlawful pleasure, for man they have but a 
quenched and sterile eye, incapable of discovering and 
delighting in the beauty of the soul. 

Even in those who realize what friendship is, it is 
not boundless : the barrier of our senses separates us 
in many points from those we love the best, and it is 
only in heaven that our embrace will be eternal. 
Until then, my poor little friend, we must love and 
forgive, like God who forgives us all our unfaithful- 
ness. And yet He was crucified for us ! Which of 
us, who believe we love so well, would have consented 
to be crucified for his friend ? 

Friday, the 30th of December, will positively see 
his Lordship the Archbishop of Toulouse come and 
bless our chapel and solemnly install our community; 
there will be a great dinner after the ceremony, at 
which the notabilities of the secular and regular clergy 
will be present. I must confess to you that we are 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 161 

going to have green peas and Perpignan artichokes, a 
something dreadful, I think, for the installation of 
monks vowed to poverty and mortification : but as 
the dinner is a present, my objections to green peas 
and artichokes in mid- winter were overruled. 

Just fancy, an old man of eighty, who, before the 
Revolution lived, when quite a child, opposite our 
great convent at Toulouse, and who was a great friend 
of the Fathers, has written me a long letter full of 
details of what took place in this poor convent on the 
eve of its fall : he gives me the names of our celebrated 
preachers, our professors, and leads me step by step 
into the most secret resorts of the community. He is 
overjoyed at seeing the restoration of our Order in the 
v T ery spot where his youth saw it flourishing. It is 
thus that all things decay and revive. Here we are 
it the end of another year : I close it by embracing 
you tenderly and assuring you that I love you as well 
as a poor creature can who loves God and another 
creature who does the same. 



162 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 



lull. 

Jntimate Communications.— Wkt beautiful 
and WrM.— §xin\mhh <&M. 

Toulouse, Feb. 2, 1854. 

I HAVE just read your letter a second time, my 
very dear friend. After having done so, I took a 
penknife to scratch out and smooth over the correc- 
tions in it. I must tell you, since you are to have all 
my secrets, that I have a horror of corrections and 
amendments : I prefer leaving an unsuitable word to 
scratching out in a letter in order to substitute a more 
French or more expressive one. This is sacrificing 
interior to exterior beauty if you like, but I can't help 
it. Therefore whatever you let fall from your pen, 
be careful never to correct it. Besides, is it not a 
piece of vain coquetry to wish to be faultless in a 
letter ? What does it matter about repetitions, over- 
long sentences, or discarded expressions : if we say 
what we feel just as it comes, that ? s enough, and I 
think I set you the example, although I have more to 
lose than you by writing bad French. 

You were wrong in showing my last letter. Beau- 
tiful or not, it was for you alone, and I understand by 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 163 

you alone those whom you love tenderly, and who 
are, as it were, a part of your soul : for I am obliged 
to take your soul with all its dependencies, under pain 
of not loving it thoroughly. This does not mean that 
I must absolutely love all those whom you do, but 
that I must have a liking for them and allow my 
affection for you to overflow a little into their heart. 
The knowledge that these things are communicated 
to others, that is strangers, chills the style, and one 
becomes disinclined to write with so much abandon. 
We do not mind opening ourselves out thoroughly to 
those we t love, but we do not like to do it to every 
one: and then again, the communication of such 
things to strangers is simply spilling the sweetest 
fragrance of friendship. 

We must be alone to read a page we love. You 
deserve a penance from me then : but you are still too 
young a religious to love penance, and I will let you 
off scot-free. 

I am of your opinion : beauty alone moves the soul 
to its very depths. But you are wrong in contrasting 
beauty with goodness : there is no beauty without 
goodness. The beautiful is the harmony of the true 
and the good in one same thing, the mingled splendor 
of both ; and if you were to meet a face in which per- 
fection of line and absolute beauty of contour ex- 
14 * 



164 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

isted, without any expression of goodness in the eyes 
or on the lips, it would be the head of Medusa. 

Goodness cannot, it is true, reach beauty : the latter 
supposes a certain splendor, and in this sense, good- 
ness alone cannot move unto rapture. 

Here I am already halfway through my work. 
On Sunday next, I shall give my fifth conference. 
Up to the present I have treated of life, the life of the 
passions, moral life, and of the necessity of a life supe- 
rior to the moral life : I am there now. The audience 
is as large as possible, and very sympathetic, although 
the middle is occupied by grown-up men, and the 
youth are somewhat kept back to the sides. Our 
little chapel is always full, and Ave are beginning to 
have a large number of confessions. The clergy 
deserve all praise. I am presently going to dine at 
the Great Seminary, it being their feast-day, and in 
a few days one of us will preach the retreat at the 
little Seminary. 

By the way, my dear friend, you would never 
imagine the treatment I am undergoing for my 
larynx : I am drinking simply nothing else but pot- 
able gold; do you hear, gold, formerly discovered by 
the famous magician Cagliostro, and recovered by an 
old diplomatist, who, having nothing more to do 
with the unravelling of human affairs, has for the last 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 165 

twenty years been searching for a modest elixir to 
prolong our life, just to two, or it may be, three hun- 
dred years. He gave me a little bottle of drinkable 
gold, and next Sunday before my conference I am 
bravely going to take seven drops of it in a cup of 
black tea. This worthy man will be in high glee at 
seeing me with his gold in my larynx, and I cannot 
deny him this satisfaction. Just let me ask whether 
at Paris, with all its skill, I should ever have had 
such luck ! I will give you an account of the exper- 
iment. 

Adieu ! my dear little friend. I think you are 
beginning to love our good God, and to feel the effects 
of separation from the world. I rejoice at it with 
you, and love you, if possible, more than ever. 



LIII. 



of $jft. Hz la $Renttais. 

Toulouse, March 6, 1854. 
My dear Friend, 

YOU were very wrong in not writing to me, as 
you were going to do, before having received 
my answer to your last letter; and this must not 



166 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

happen again. Write lo me when yonr heart tells 
you to do so, as frequently and at as -great length as 
you like, provided you do not get offended if I do 
not answer you as quickly as you could wish. If 
you loved me well you would hear my answer through 
space, you would know that I was happy whilst read- 
ing you over and over again, and you would forgive 
me for being behind-hand on paper. 

The fine weather reminds me as well as yourself 
of our walks at the present season, in the woods of 
Bellevue and Meudon. Shall we ever take any more 
such there or elsewhere ? God only knows : but 
what is certain is that we shall have the joy of con- 
tinuing them under more beautiful shades in an end- 
less spring. That is where we must appoint our final 
meeting. The rest is, as you say, but a preparation, 
a prelude, a vestibule ; and the wretchedness of men 
without faith is to wish to exhaust their friendship 
here below. We shall see one another but rarely 
perhaps here below, but one day we shall see one 
another for ever. You will then be very beautiful, 
and I shall have recovered my youth to contemplate 
yours. Between this and then I shall grow old, and 
you will too ; but this old age is but a dream which 
covers the approach of renovation and immortality. 
In the meanwhile we shall have sad days ; there are 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 167 

such everywhere. Melancholy is the great queen of 
souls which feel deeply : she touches them without 
knowing how or why, at a secret, unexpected hour. 
The ray of light which gladdens others, saddens 
them ; the festival which moves and enraptures others, 
pierces them with a dart. Scarcely can God and our 
Lord dispel in the heart which loves them these vain 
and bitter clouds. 

This kind of suffering is the more difficult to 
master because the cause of it is unreal. 

You ask me for my opinion on the Crimean War. 
I believe it to be just. The union of France and 
England against the arrogance of schism and despot- 
ism is a great thing. The law of Christian nations is 
to prevent the world from falling under one master 
as in the time of the Roman Empire. This is the 
reason why everything which, in regenerated Europe, 
has tended to this boundless ambition, has met with 
an insurmountable obstacle. Charlemagne himself 
divided his empire, the popes themselves opposed 
successfully the too great extension of the Holy 
Roman Empire. France, for a century and a half, 
from Charles V. to the treaty of Westphalia, worked 
at the humiliation of the house of Austria, which had 
succeeded to the two worlds ; Europe formed a coa- 
lition against Louis XI V., and overthrew Napoleon. 



168 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

It is Russia's turn. The thing is begun, and what- 
ever may be the present issue, the path is marked 
out : Russia will go no further ; and if she madly 
persists in plans condemned by God, she will perish 
in them. Still, I do not think the Turks will 
remain long encamped in Europe. God is following 
up two ends : their expulsion and the limiting of 
Russia's power. These two ends seem contradictory, 
but God reconciles what seems irreconcilable, and 
serenity is on the outskirts of the tempest. Conse- 
quently, make up your mind to see Russia humbled 
and the Turks driven out sooner or later. 

You said a word to me about M. de la Mennais. 
His death followed quickly upon the prayers so many 
souls offered up to God for him. What a death ! No 
single one in ecclesiastical history has produced so 
painful an impression upon me, not even that of 
Arius. Arius was stricken ignominiously down, in 
a place set apart for the vilest wants of the human 
body ; but he had not himself written his last will 
about his funeral. 

That abandonment, that pauper's coffin, that com- 
mon grave without a single token left to a single 
friend, that universal silence over a tomb which might 
have been so illustrious, all this makes up a kind of 
spectre which haunts me. Thirty years ago, when I 




LETTERS TO YO 

came to Paris, I found M. de lal 
as a father of the Church : an| 
infidel, without principles, wil 
friends, leaving a memory wl 
Christendom like an eternal weight. 

When I call to mind all the circumstances of my 
relations with him ; the time when I saw him good 
and happy, surrounded by a flourishing youth ; the 
misgivings I had of his fall, our separation, the 
twenty years that have rolled by since, between the 
time when I used to sleep at his door at Paris, Rome, 
la Chesnaie, and that grave which has closed over him 
for ever. What different remembrances, which ac- 
quire from one another a power under which the 
mind sinks in astonishment ! I felt, I confess to you, 
fortified ; this terrible judgment opens my eyes to the 
past; I thank God for having so quickly enlightened 
me with regard to my duties, and having given me 
the courage to accomplish them publicly. The first 
separation was very painful : this one is too ; but it 
is qualified by a sentiment of the justice of God, of a 
thing done, of a drama played out. God has pro- 
nounced, blessed be His holy name. 

Be always very gentle and very humble, my dear 
child ; everything may be made up for by these two 




TO 70 UNO MEN. 

ompensates for their absence, 
t. 



(We here give several fragments of letters of Father La- 
cordaire, touching M. de la Mennais.) 

LIV. 

December 11, 1832. 

I SHALL leave La Chesnaie this evening ; honoi 
obliges me so to do, since I am convinced that, 
for the future, my life would be useless to you, on 
account of the difference of our views touching the 
Church and society : which difference has but daily 
increased, notwithstanding my earnest endeavors to 
follow the development of your opinions. I believe 
that, neither during my life, nor even long after, will 
republican institutions be possible in France, or in 
any other country of Europe, and I cannot adopt any 
system grounded upon an opposite view. Without 
giving up my liberal ideas, I see and believe that the 
Church has had grave reasons, in the profound cor- 
ruption of parties, for refusing to hurry matters ac- 
cording to our wishes. I respect her views and my 
own. Your opinions may be more exact, more pro- 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 171 

found, than mine, and, seeing your natural superiority 
over me, I oughfi to be satisfied that such is the case : 
but man is not made up of reason alone ; and not 
being able to rid myself of the ideas which divide us, 
it is but right that I should put an end to a commu- 
nity of life, which is a great advantage to me, and a 
burden to you. Conscience, no less than honor, 
obliges me to do so, for I must employ my life some- 
how or other in God's service ; and not being able to 
follow you, what should I be doing here but wearying 
and discouraging you, shackling your plans, and 
sacrificing myself to no purpose? 

You will never know but in heaven the suffering 
I have undergone for the last year, from the simple 
fear of giving you pain. In all my doubts, in all 
my perplexities, I have had you alone in view ; and 
however bitter may one day be my existence, nothing 
will ever equal the grief which I feel on the present 
occasion. I leave you in peace with the Church, 
higher than ever in public opinion, so superior to 
your enemies, that they are as nothing. I could 
choose no better time to do that which, while giving 
you some pain, will, believe me, spare you much 
greater. I do not exactly know as yet what I shall 
do, whether I shall go to the United States, or remain 

in France, or in what position. Wherever I may be, 
15 



172 LETTERS TO YO UXG MEN. 

you will ever have proofs of the respect and attach- 
ment for you which I shall ever cherish, — and I beg 
of you to accept this expression of them from a 
broken heart. 

LV. 

Octoher 6, 1833. 

MDE LA MENNAIS declares that "for many 
t reasons, and chiefly because it is the province 
of the Holy See to decide what is good and useful for 
the Church, he is resolved to stand aloof from all mat- 
ters touching her." I have to remark that nothing 

can be more anti-Catholic than this saying 

Were this the case, the Church would be unfortunate 
indeed. ' Her children have never any right, under 
whatever pretext, to stand aloof from what concerns 
, her : they must act according to their position and 
capacity, as M. de la Mennais has done up to the 
present; but their action must be accompanied by 
submission to the direction of the Holy See j they 

are not to be their own guides Xo amount 

of talent, no services however great, compensate for 
the harm done to the Church by a separation, of 
whatever nature, or by an action done without her 
bosom. I would rather throw myself into the sea 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 173 

with a millstone round my neck, than entertain 
hopes, ideas, or support even good works outside the 
Church. 



LYI. 

December 2, 1833. 

MDE LA MENNAIS' misfortune does not so 
I much lie in his haughty character, in his very 
imperfect knowledge of human and divine things, as 
in his contempt of the pontifical authority, and of 
the painful situation of the Holy s See. He has 
blasphemed Rome in her misfortunes ; it is the crime 
of Cham, the crime which has, next to deicide, been 
visited on earth with the most palpable and lasting 
punishment. Woe to him who troubles the Church ! 
Woe to him who blasphemes the Apostles ! The lot 
of the Church is to be victorious still ; the time of 
Antichrist is not yet come. M. de la Mennais' fall 
will not check the formidable march of truth : this 
very fall will but serve it. . . t . . . 



174 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 



LVIL 

February 3, 1834. 

I AM accused of being merciless towards him ! Ah 1 
if ever I had discovered in the Abbe de la Men- 
nais a single real yearning, a single sentiment of 
humility, that interesting something which misfortune 
lends its victim, I should have been unable to see it 
and think of it without being moved to the inmost 
depths of my soul. 

When we were together, and I fancied I discovered 
in him resignation, sentiments devoid of pride and 
passion, I cannot express what I felt. But these 
moments were few indeed, and all that I can call to 
mind is stamped with a character of wilfulness and 
blindness such as dries up pity. You I pity, because 
you are suffering through the fault of another, because, 
although there are in you many personal illusions and 
faults which God will one day lay to your charge, stilP 
r /ou are a victim — a victim of the goodness of your heart. 
But he ! well, since my friend is so unjust towards me, 
I must expect justice from God alone. He will bear 
witness to the purity of my intentions ; He will say 
why I sided with the Church against a man ; He will 
show on which side was single-minded faith, candor, 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 175 

and consistency ; He will show who was, of all, the 
real friend of the Abbe' de la Mennais, and whose 
was the advice which, if followed, would have raised 
his glory and virtue higher than ever. 

The hour of justice will, I feel convinced, come 
round sooner than is imagined; but if it does not 
come in this world, I shall not find fault with Provi- 
dence. The accomplishment of my duty amply 
satisfies me. 



LVIII. 

April 17, 1834. 

NOW, I have completely fulfilled my duty towards 
M. de la Mennais. I have said touching the 
school he desired to found, that which a ten years' 
personal experience has taught me, and had I done 
nothing but that in my life, I should die happy. 
My conscience is at ease, it breathes at last ; after ten 

years' suffering I am beginning to live A 

few at least understand me; they know that I have 
become neither a republican, a juste-milieu, nor a 
legitimist, but that I have made one step towards that 
noble character of a priest, above all parties, though 
sympathizing with every weakness. They know that 

the result of my journey to Borne nas been to soften 
15* 



'176 LETTERS TO YO UNG MEN. 

down my ideas, to withdraw me from the fatal whirl- 
wind of polemics, to attach me exclusively to the 
things of God, and through the things of God, to 
the slow progressive happiness of nations. They 
know that the only cause of my separation from a 
celebrated man, was my unwillingness to plunge 
deeper with him into those unfortunate daily politics, 
and the impossibility of getting him to take up the 
position where the applause of the Church awaited 
him, and where he would have done more for the 
emancipation of humanity than he will ever do upon 
his present ground. 



-♦<>♦- 



LIX. 

Bkt&kntL— HL it h IftennatH. 



<&> 



J LIVE alone, in continual study, calm, trustful 
in God and the future. Nothing can be done 
without the Church and time. Had the Abb£ de la 
Mennais but willed, what a glorious opening for him. 
He was at the height of his glory, and I have never 
been able to understand how a man of that cast could 
have ignored the value of what God had left for him. 
The religious task forsaken by him is so grand, so 
easy, so much above all others, that in three months, 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 177 

in Paris, I have moved more heads and hearts than I 
could possibly have done during the fifteen years of 
the Restoration. Obedience is painful, but experience 
has taught me that sooner or later it is rewarded, and 
that God alone knows what is good for us. The light 
breaks in upon him who submits, as upon one who 
opens his eyes. 

The accomplishment of duty with courage and 
single-mindedness is the surest way to come at the 
real and deserved admiration of men. Time is 
required for everything, the thing is to be always 
ready without forestalling the hour marked out by 
Providence. What a difference between 1834 and 
1844 ! Ten years have sufficed to change the whole 
scene. We can scarcely estimate what we have 
gained during this last fight in union, strength, and 
prospects. Even supposing the free education ques- 
tion lost for fifty years, we have gained even more 
than that itself, we have won the instrument which 
will get it for us, and with it much of the freedom 
necessary for the salvation of France and the world. 
Had the poor Abbe de la Mennais but known how 
to wait, what a moment for him ! Alas ! we told him 
so so often ! He would be greater than ever. Humility 
and confidence in the Church were the only two 
things required. Up to the very last the position 



178 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

was a splendid one, in fact so much so that it has won 
the day. Younger and more single-minded, we have 
bowed to the direction of the Church ; we have 
acknowledged exaggeration of style and even of views ; 
and God who sounds the reins and the heart cast 
upon us a look of mercy ; He was gracious enough 
not to crush us, and even to make use of us. The 
Church has never presented an instance of a greater 
reward given to submission, nor of a more terrible 
chastisement inflicted on revolt. 



LX. 

jpowrfg and JjYmuMtip. 

March 15, 1833. 

IN general, the great men of antiquity were poor. 
This is the rock upon which every one splits to- 
day ; people no longer know how to live on a little. 
It is true that, used as I have been to live poor from 
my birth ; I may be unable to see the difficulties in 
the way of those whose habits are not like my own. 
But retrenchment of the useless, the want even of the 
relatively necessary, is the high road to Christian de- 
tachment, as well as to antique strength of character. 



LETTERS TO TOUNG MEN. 179 

Whoever has attained the moral beauty of life, not 
only before God, but before men, cannot fall by those 
exterior reverses without showing that his greatness of 
soul was hollow, his cleverness simply good fortune. 
What is most wanting to our age is a man able to 
gratify every desire, and content with little. For my 
part, humanly speaking, I ambition nothing more. 
A great heart in a little house, is of all things here 
below that which has ever touched me most. The 
Abbd de la Mennais dying poor and faithful at La 
Chesnaie, would have been the hero of this age, in 
which the fortune of every man is above his deserts. 



LXI. 

(Bqimttig m\& <J[ri*RjteMfl. 

Toulouse, April 3, 1854. 
My dear Friend, 

ALLOW me to give you a good scolding for the 
very obsequious manner in which you talk to 
me. Now, for the future, let not it be father, espe- 
cially Reverend Father, but, my friend. For I am a 
very sincere friend of yours, and although spiritually 
I may have been of use to yuur soul, still it is not on 
that side that my heart has met yours, and that God 



180 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

has given me a leaning for you. You were a believer : 
I did not snatch you from the darkness of ignorance 
and error, and introduce you into the pure region of 
light in which you now dwell. Even had I done so, 
friendship is of its own nature greater in scope than 
paternity ; it supposes benevolence of a freer and more 
open-hearted character than the latter; and such is 
the nature of my feelings towards you, and of yours 
towards me, unless I mistake my desire for the reality. 
If you feel this return, if your heart be really inclined 
towards mine, allow it to follow its bent simply and 
naturally ; talk and write to me as to an equal, ac- 
cording to Seneca's saying, "Amicitia aut pares invenit 
autfacit." I am older than you, and if the soul were 
absolutely the victim of time, the disproportion would 
be irremediable. Besides, if God has given me a little 
talent and a little renown, you yourself know how 
trifling a thing it is, and nothing would be more 
dreadful than glory if it stood in the way of affection. 
Forget, then, what I ought to forget myself, and which 
as compared with virtue is nothing. We both know 
and love God. This puts us upon a perfect and 
eternal equality. Those who do not live in God can 
be separated by insurmountable barriers on account 
of all the differences which naturally arise in this 
world, differences of birth, fortune, talent, and glory: 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 181 

bat in God, in whom we both live, the world disap- 
pears, the infinite leaves between those who love each 
other no distance but that of love, which draws every- 
thing together. 

I trust, then, that you will treat me for the future 
with sweet and amiable familiarity. I beg of you to 
do so, and I believe myself deserving of it on account 
of the^deep affection God has given me for you. 

The thought of seeing you again gladdens me, and 
this thought may perhaps prevent me from being as 
piously sad as I ought to be during the great week 
upon which we are entering. 



LXIL 

©he Utmorjj; of <Jfrettmc tenant, 

Toulouse, April 10, 1854. 

YOUR letter, my dear friend, crossed one of mine. 
In it you remind me of my wish to devote a few 
pages to the memory of M. Ozanam, and my promise 
to that effect. As to that promise, I only remember 
having said that I would willingly preach at a service 
for him which was then contemplated, at the church 
of the Carmes. I believe also, I said that I would 
make out an opportunity of speaking of him m one 



182 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

of my works, if God granted me the grace to publish 
anything more. The proposed service not having 
taken place, I think that on this point I am freed 
from my promise, and as to devoting a few pages to 
him it was and still is my very sincere wish. 

I see you are desirous of a more direct homage, 
since you talk to me about a preamble either to the 
history of his life, or to an edition of his works. I 
confess this form pleases me less. It looks too much 
like what is commonly done ; on the contrary, a men- 
tion made in virtue of a lasting impression in a pub- 
lication where it is not expected, seems to me to be a 
graver and deeper homage, freer from pretension, and 
more likely to go down to posterity, if ever it should 
read us. 

It is thus that Cicero, in his dialogues on eloquence, 
has paid to some of the orators of his time an illus- 
trious tribute, which has sufficed to perpetuate their 
memory as well as to evoke admiration for him who 
outdid them. I am not a Cicero, as you may well 
imagine ; but with all due reduction, it is not unbe- 
coming to imitate example given by those greater than 
ourselves, 

Scarcely had the grave closed over our dear Ozanam, 
when he received numerous and striking testimonies 
of respectful and admiring sympathy. I have seen 



LETTERS TO YOUNG M.&JST. 183 

few, perhaps no man of our day, whose death called 
forth so lively an expression of public sorrow. Would 
you have me, after that, dictate a preface to his works 
or his life? This commonplace proceeding would 
not be worthy of him. Time is no consideration in 
the case of great men. The expression of the remem- 
brance they continually keep alive, far froni losing 
by delay, is one of the signs of great renown. A piece 
of praise escaping unintentionally from a moved heart, 
goes further in the future than panegyrics which create 
a sensation for the time. Such, my dear friend, are 
my impressions upon this subject. It appears to me 
to be either too late or too soon, and that the proposed 
form is not sufficiently dignified. We must not make 
a collection of mournings over this dear and illustrious 
deceased one. Events will one day give us an oppor- 
tunity of holding him up as a pattern, of speaking out 
fully about him, and that will be better for him and 
for us than a few pages awkwardly put by us at the 
head of his works. There is nothing, however, to 
prevent you from refuting my reasons, and if you will 
positively have it so, I am ready to obey. 

You know by my last letter that I shall be at the 
college of Oullins, near Lyons, on the twenty-third. 
I shall there await your answer, or rather your deci- 
sion. 

16 



184 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 



LXIII. 

®k (ferlesiasttcat (S[nl of t\u lair.— §lu 
priest in tty WioxU. 

Toulouse, June 19, 1854. 

I WILL not conceal from you, my very dear friend, 
that I was slightly uneasy about you. As I did 
not think about the Trinity retreat and the ordination, 
I was almost blaming your forgetfulness, while you 
were wholly intent upon Him who was going to do 
you the great favor to cut off your hair for His love. 
I suspect, however, that you are anything but closely 
cut, and that you are somewhat tenacious of your 
beautiful head of hair, just as when you were in the 
world, and used to put back gracefully the curls that 
fell over your forehead. 

In the matter of ecclesiastical fashions for the bair, 
I like only the Roman one, as seen in the Holy Fathei 
himself. I mean short in front and behind, without 
anything to hang about and cover the ears or neck. 
That seems to me to be noble, grave, severe, and fine. 
That kind of tail or fan worn by our French priests 
has always seemed to me meaningless and ungraceful ; 
and I am surprised how they cling to it, especially 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 185 

when the canons tell them to keep their hair short. 
Your hair, my dear child, is, it is true, better propor- 
tioned, it falls gracefully and naturally without form- 
ing a kind of crest, and in this you show your taste; 
but it does not seem to me to gain in gravity and 
austerity. Look at the heads of the Roman Consuls, 
the ears, the brow, the neck are bare. The head ap- 
pears in its natural shape, and there is nothing femi- 
nine about it. The monks have pushed this rigor 
still farther by shaving nearly all the head, except a 
crown of hair, and I confess beauty is not a gainer by 
it. But ought not the priest to be at least up to the 
looks of a consul? Compare the ecclesiastical por- 
traits of the eighteenth, seventeenth, and sixteenth 
centuries; "the last are severe, thin, and slightly stiff, 
the hair short, and everything about them looking 
manly. 

The seventeenth century is got up in a long floating 
wig ; the features are still noble, but the energy has 
diminished. We feel that there is more majesty in 
the costume than in the heart. As for the eighteenth, 
it is powdered hair, fair and rosy cheeks, and one 
would take priests and bishops for boys of fourteen. 

The Revolution revived the true taste in the matter 
of hair-keeping ; but our youth have again fallen into 
an effeminate fashion of having thick, long, and float- 



1S6 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN 

mg hair ; and as for the clergy, they have adopted a 
fashion utterly incomprehensible in any point of view; 
the only thing it can be called is a feeble remnant of 
a wig. 

Enough about your tonsure, I hope. But it is the 
first step you are making in priestly gravity, and I 
must write to you as to a man who belongs to the 
Church. 

I was very much touched at the impression pro- 
duced upon you by the nave of Notre-Dame. It is 
my great country ! I always salute it as soon as I see 
its towers upon coming iuto Paris. It is more dear 
to me still on account of the joy it gives you. 

Madame de has written to me about your visit. 

She was very much pleased with you, and I advise 
you to go and see her now and then. Notwithstand- 
ing her name, she is not a worldly lady ; Jesus Christ 
has stripped her of the pride of her birth, (a very rare 
thing,) and she is in the disposition of those Koman 
ladies whom St. Jerome gathered round him from 
amid the ruins of the people and the senate. You 
must no longer feel that kind of uneasiness you used 
to experience in the dwellings of the rich and great : 
that kind of timidity and embarrassment does not 
become a man who has renounced the world for Jesus 
Christ, and who looks upon everything with the eyes 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 187 

of eternity. What is an apartment, how sumptuous 
soever? You must for the future look at nothing 
but the soul, the soul sinful or regenerated, which 
needs penance, or is purified in the waters of voluntary 
humility. A Christian presents himself before the 
rich and great with neither the arrogance of the 
demagogue, nor the cringing of the courtier ; he is 
simple and natural, without fear, without desires, 
without emotion. 

By the way, I forgot to tell you that I have written 
a lecture upon the "Law of History" which is to be 
read in the public meeting of the Academy of Legis- 
lation at Toulouse. You would never guess what is 
contained under that heading : The Laio of History ! 
I will send you a copy upon its appearance. 

Adieu, my dear friend, I embrace you, your beau- 
tiful hair notwithstanding, as a soul which loves 
God, which God loves, and which He allows me to 
cherish. 
16* 



188 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 



lxiy. 

®k Jtginmnp of the %t\i$iom fife. 

Toulouse, July 27, 1854. 
My dear Friend, 

THE date at the head of your last letter, July 4, 
positively frightens me. It is true I made a 
journey to Oullins, which took me ten days, and that 
on my return I found a large bundle of letters await- 
ing answers. Such is my excuse, if one it be. I am 
sure you were again giving way to the idea that you 
were not loved as much as you love, and I am really 
grieved at it. Do not be astonished at these little 
clouds of melancholy which cross your soul. One of 
the trials of the religious life is to live with men who 
are not of our own choice, and who for the most part 
awake in us no natural sympathy, so that we are 
obliged to intimacy without the condiment of affection" 
which makes it sweet and agreeable. 

Intimacy of life with beings of our own choice is 
the sweetest and most perfect thing upon earth ; one 
which makes it like to the life of heaven. Now this 
you no longer enjoy. You used to closet yourself 
when you liked ; you used to withdraw into the little 



Letters to young men. 189 

sanctuary of your heart or your cabinet ; then you 
came out of it at will to see or receive your friends. 
Now, however, neither your solitude nor your inti- 
macy is your own. You have to be joyous when you 
feel inclined to sadness, to be at the service of the 
first-come of your brothers, of him for whom you 
nave the least liking ; it is a perpetual thwarting of 
nature's yearning. Community life for the sake of 
Jesus Christ, and under the influence of supernatural 
charity, is, for this reason, the greatest miracle of 
Christianity. In it a man must be either unhappy or a 
saint. Now, you are not yet a saint, but still enough of 
one to accept the sacrifice whilst you feel it. Your 
youthful liberty still comes back to you : you think 
you are no longer loved as you used to be, and that 
is true, in this sense, that you are no longer living 
exclusively with people who please you and who are 
of your own choice. You will require time to get 
into it, and to love with a supernatural tenderness ; 
but I trust God will grant you the grace to do it, if 
you are faithful to His will. 

I was extremely glad to hear you are study-master, 
and you deserve it richly ! Even so, you are not so 
badly oif as those in the same position who had such 
hard times with you ! They were the laughing- 
stock of their pupils, whilst yours respect you, and 



190 LETTERS TO YOUXG MEN. 

see in you the representative of our Lord. In order 
to be really a study -master, you ought to have been 
forced by want to take that place in one of the 
university colleges. That would have been a really 
good visitation of our good God upon your imperti- 
nence and naughtiness from fourteen to fifteen. But 
Providence treats you like a spoilt child. 

As for myself, I too am going to take the conduct 
of children in a fortnight. I take possession of Soreze 
upon the eighth of August, at the distribution of the 
prizes. I have, however, met from the scholars and 
every one else with a reception which betokens an 
easy and happy administration. I am overjoyed at 
leaving the world to live with children and young 
men. We can at least flatter ourselves we shall find 
some among them good, -firm, and generous, and if it 
be an illusion, it is still preferable to the pain of the 
reality. 

You have probably received my lecture at the 
Academy of Legislation. You see I did not talk 
about the Romans as much as you expected, and that 
I did talk a little about things you did not expect at 
all. You now have the broad lines of my convic- 
tions upon our epoch and the future. I hope you 
liked it, and that my dear little friend recognized his 
own heart in mine. 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 191 



LXV. 

2ftu gritoat ojf 55o«ize. — ©h« Sfltoujgftt of 

Soreze, August 21, 1854. 

I HAVE just read your two letters for the second 
time, my dear friend, and am really delighted at 
them. I think you are beginning to love me a little, 
and to tell me so with heartiness and simplicity. If 
you but knew the joy it gives me! I cannot describe 
it to you. In order to do that, I should have to 
become twenty or twenty-five again, the age at which 
everything allows you to say all. 

Now I am shackled, and. tell or send you but a 
faint shadow of what I feel. 

You would never guess my present life. In the 
first place we have two days public exercises. I pre- 
sided at gymnastic contests, fencing-matches, racing, 
dramatic performances, and I don't know how many 
things I had not yet seen, and which appeared to me 
very attractive, and above all touching. I compared 
the first years of my youth with this splendid play- 
ground, this music, these fountains, the free look 
winch surrounded me on all sides, and I envied the 



192 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

lot of these youths whom I saw ripening amid so many 
beauties. On the morrow everything was deserted. 
There remained but a few boys lost in the immensity 
of their dwelling. 

The first thing I did was to get two hundred feet 
of timber felled in the park. I always begin with 
this, no matter where I be, provided I am master. 
If ever France chose me for her king, not an impossi- 
bility two hundred years hence, I think my first 
decree would be for the felling of two or three mil- 
lions of trees on the soil of our dear country. This 
is owing to a certain love of order, of simplicity and 
symmetry, which makes me uncomfortable in a badly 
laid-out place ; and I remark, in the majority of the 
gardens which come under my notice, that their great 
defect is being over-stocked. It is the same with 
writing. 

But let us return to my life at Soreze. The trees 
felled, I made a general visitation of the house, and 
ordered a host of repairs, from the putting up of 
pilasters in the chapel, to the clearing away of cob- 
webs from the windows and ceilings. I cannot bear, 
in a house where I live, a disorderly spot, even were 
it a hundred feet under ground. Consequently every 
one is as busy as he can be, and I am getting a prodi- 
gious name for seeing everything, and prying into 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 193 

holes and corners unknown to the generations who 
preceded me. Add to this meetings every day, to 
draw up the plan of our studies and discipline, and 
yon will know tolerably well what I am doing, and 
what I am far from you. 

Far from you ! do you hear ? far from you by the 
poor material part ; for there is one which never leaves 
you. 

To come to serious topics, I don't approve of your 
abandoning yourself to the idea of death through 
melancholy. Nothing certainly is more beautiful 
than to die, after having known all one can know here 
below, God, His Christ, and His Church ; but this 
thought must not come from the dark side of the soul ; 
it must come from the brighter and more serene side, 
just as the sun rises out of the east. To die ! To 
bare one's neck, lay one's head on a block in presence 
of God, then feel it fall for truth and justice, is the 
greatest destiny here below. Even the ancients knew 
this : how much more we who have seen Jesus Christ 
die ? You will observe, too, that He Himself con- 
sidered death too beautiful and sweet in itself; He 
clothed it with the garb of suffering and opprobrium. 
That is why to desire simply the charming death of 
the scaffold, is to love it after the fashion of the great 
men of antiquity, and not like Christians. There- 



194 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

fore do not think thus any more ; our death is the 
death of the cross ; we must carry it daily, like a freed 
bondsman who follows his master out of love. 
Doubtless, no one of us, even the man of the tender- 
est and most heroic desires, is sure to be strong enough 
to suffer : but this is God's business, we have nothing 
to do with it. We must throw ourselves, weak as 
we are, into the horror of death, and leave to God, 
should the day come, the care of making us what we 
would wish to be. 

I say to you, then, with St. Paul, " Gaudete." 
Will Soreze never see you ? Will you never come 
and see its beeches and sycamores two hundred years 
old, drink its flowing waters, climb its mountains, 
dive into its valleys ? I don't press you, it would be 
too great a temptation for you if you did see it ! I 
confine myself to embracing you as well as I can, and 
that is with tenderness. 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 195 

LXVI. 

% IJftmlt on fporsetacft.— £foute the Jjutat 

Soreze, October 4, 1854. 

I WAS under the impression, my dear friend, that 
you would have been somewhat pained during our 
interview at Oullins, because I was myself interiorly 
pained at having seen so little of you. I was only 
there two days ; I had to hold councils, examine the 
vocation of five postulants, and receive those with 
whom I had made engagements. This thoroughly 
explained my seeing so little of you, but it was not 
therefore the less painful either in your case or my 
own. Nothing is harder than duty in conflict with 
affection, for duty must carry the day. But perhaps 
I did not tell you sufficiently how much it cost me. 
I sometimes hurt others unintentionally, because I do 
not happen to know that a thought or a circumstance 
is unremarked by them. But now I am a hundred 
times freer than then. The provincial chapter went 
off well ; a good choice has been made of my suc- 
cessor, and I am at last relieved of the enormous 
burden which has been weighing upon me for the 

last fifteen years. 
17 



196 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

This restoration of the Friars Preachers in France 
was at bottom a desperate undertaking ; one would 
have thought I should have gone to the wall in it. 
Instead of that, God opened up the way, threw down 
obstacles, fed, lodged, and provided for us, gave us a 
few really saintly religious, and numbers of others 
solidly virtuous, a few preachers who have done good; 
He preserved concord among us, and in giving up 
my post, I have the consolation to leave everything 
in good order. 

As for you, my dearest child, who ride in the forest 
of Compiegne, and take it as a matter of course, I 
have nothing to say to. you. A priest can undoubt- 
edly go on horseback in the exercise of his ministry. 
There are mountainous countries in which it is the 
only means of travelling, and even bishops make no 
difficulty about traversing the rugged portions of 
their diocese in this manner. But to ride for mere 
amusement, like the sons of the wealthy, who spend 
the afternoon in the Bois de Boulogne, does certainly 
seem to me somewhat bold in a religious. The horse 
inspires pride ; riding is a luxury ; do you think that 
Jesus Christ, who entered Jerusalem upon an ass, 
would have been pleased to see you on horseback? 
Not that an ecclesiastic might not be able to ride 
properly ; but do you think you would wear a scarlet 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 197 

coat with gold braid, supposing that were still the 
fashion in France? Would your heart be unmoved 
at the thought of your being dressed like the wealthy 
and the great of this world ? When M. de Ranee 
turned from his evil ways, he sold his horses and 
carriages, laid aside the magnificent clothes he used 
to wear, and covered with mourning a body which 
he had long given over to sin. Is not this the act 
of a recollected and penitent soul ? Do you think 
now that a young unbeliever, who saw you on horse- 
back, would be tempted in the evening to throw him- 
self at your feet, and lay open to you the wounds of 
his heart? I do not think so. A man on horseback 
is too high up for another to kneel down to him. 
We must humble ourselves if we would have others 
humble. It is related in the life of one of our saints 
that one day he was going through a town on horse- 
back with his friends ; God, who wanted to make 
him His own, threw him down into the mud, and 
this was the occasion of his salvation and his sanctity. 
I am of your opinion about mountains, the sea, 
and forests ; they are the three great things in nature, 
and have many analogies, especially the sea and 
forests. I am as fond as yourself of them ; but as 
old age creeps on, nature takes less hold upon us than 
souls ; and we feel the beauty of the saying of Yau- 



198 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

venargues, " Sooner or later we enjoy only souls." This 
is why we can always love and be loved. Old age, 
which withers the body, gives the soul a second youth 
if she be not corrupted and forgetful of herself, and 
the moment of death is that of the blossoming of our 
mind. 

One thing is however certain, and that is, that if 
I had found you in the forest of Compiegne, upon 
your horse, I think I should have given you a sound 
dozen with the whip, in my capacity of father and 
friend; this, however, does not prevent me from 
embracing you very tenderly. 



3! 



LXYII. . 

on §opes in tidiness. 

Soreze, October 25, 1854. 

OUR letter, my dear friend, brought me grievous 
news. I felt in my own chest the stroke which 
has lighted upon yours. The worst thing possible, 
however, in your position, would be to give way to 
despondency. Despondency is a deadly feeling, even 
for those in good health ; how much more so for those 
whose health is impaired ! The best thing we can do 



Y 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 199 

when we are hit hard, is to take heart in proportion 
to the weight of the blow. I have gone through a 
great deal in my lifetime ; more than once I have 
been upon the brink of a dark precipice. Now, 
nothing was of greater use to me on these occasions 
than a sort of sudden energy which has given me, 
how I knew not, and which, despite the weak and 
melancholy side of my nature, raised me above my- 
self at the very time I was most likely to succumb. 

It is evident that God is marking out a limit for 
you. Neither you nor myself know why ; but what 
is certain is, that God is good, that He loves you, and 
that He has His designs. We must take them for 
what they are, without being able to unravel them, 
and accept them with submission. This done, and 
all impatience being discarded as a weakness, you 
must look out for the means of getting over it. 

I know a lady, about as big as a lark, who, one 

fine day, about fifteen years ago, met with what has 

just befallen yourself. The blood burst from her 

throat : half her lungs disappeared, and she imagined 

she had only a couple of days to live. Now this lady 

•s still alive, she is active, strong, and courageous, 

almost a saint, instead of being the thin, wan little 

creature she formerly was. Everything about her 

has felt the influence of her change. Her father was 
17* 



200 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

an infidel : he is now a believer : her daughter is 
walking in the mother's footsteps ; her uncle, an old 
veteran who had forgotten God, has returned to Him, 
and serves Mass at seventy like a chorister. A virtue 
from on high has spread around this woman, and as 
she is obliged every winter to pass six months in the 
south, she has become for a great number of souls the 
centre of a supernatural warmth. Have you never 
read such things in the lives of the saints ? Have 
you not heard of some who were dying for a quarter 
of a century, and who drew from this living death a 
prodigious activity for good? God makes use of 
death as well as of life. The weaker the instruments 
the greater the amount of His own strength and glory 
He lends them. 

I have often talked to you about death and the 
necessity of despising it. We must now think about 
life. You will survive me. If I deserve a few pages 
to be written about me, you will write them. Medi- 
tation and writing do not require any very great 
amount of physical strength. Even supposing God 
did not give you the strength necessary for the minis- 
try of preaching, you would still have another kin. 
and be strong enough to enable you to turn your life 
to some purpose. 

Such, my dear friend, in a few words, are the 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 201 

thoughts suggested to me by your mishap and the 
state it has thrown you into. I pray our Lord to 
strengthen you, He alone can do it. Friendship 
itself is powerless against great pain. Adieu, promise 
me to take heart, and know that I should be very 
unhappy at the thought of your being so. 



LXVIII. 

tenant's Itefis. 

Soreze, January 13, 1855. 
SlE, 

I AM very happy to have afforded you a few mo- 
ments' consolation, by the very imperfect tribute 
paid to the memory of our common friend, and I 
would willingly undertake a notice of his works in 
the Correspondant. But your letter would give me 
to understand that they will appear in single volumes. 
This would make the task of speaking of the whole 
a difficult one, and might take away from their suc- 
cess. People do not like reading isolated volumes 
which come out at intervals. There would be greater 
advantage, I would even say grandeur, in their 
appearing all together. The volumes might be sent 
me as they appeared : I would study them ; then at 



202 LETTERS TO TGUNG MEN. 

the moment of the final publication my notice would 
be itself printed. 

Such is the plan I would propose. Otherwise 1 
should be obliged to wait until the last volume had 
appeared, which would necessitate great delay, and 
my work would thereby labor under the disadvantage 
of appearing to be written too late. I should be 
obliged to you if you would consider this, consult the 
family and friends of our dear departed friend, and 
let me know, at your earliest convenience, the 
decision come to. In itself, the matter is indifferent 
to me, and I do not make it a condition of my per- 
sonal dispositions. 

Whatever the case be, I shall be happy to con- 
tribute, if I can, to the glory of one of the greatest 
minds and noblest characters which the Church of 
France has brought forth in our age. 

Pray accept, Sir, the expression of my high esteem 
and cordial devotedness. 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 203 



LXIX. 

tton in J^tu% 

Soreze, ifay 11, 1855. 
My deae Feiend, 

I HAVE a mountain of reproaches for you. First, 
your signature at the end of your letter is simply 
hieroglyphic : that is excusable only in business-men 
who are afraid of being robbed if they write their 
names plainly. Then your article was signed with a 
borrowed name, which is simply horrible, A man 
ought never to write anything without signing it, and 
avoid above everything the pseudonym. When a man 
cannot put his name to a publication, it is an infal- 
lible sign that he ought not to have written it, and 
that it should not be published. You have already 
published a great deal without your signature ; I am 
determined not to forgive you this crime ; the more 
so as you have no reason for concealing yourself. If 
your youth does not allow you to tell your readers 
who you are, why do you get readers ? 

Your article pleased me very much : it was grace- 
ful and touching, qualities which I discovered during 



204 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

Holy Week in M. de Melun's work, who had the 
kindness to send it to me. I receive from time to 
time these marks of remembrance, but none charm 
me so much as yours. 

I was hoping to see you at Soreze very soon, and 
Io and behold ! you put me off till the month of Sep- 
tember, when our halls will be empty. Fortunately 
nature and autumn will not be gone. I shall expect 
you then at that time, but don't fail then, at least. 
Alas ! it is so rare a thing to have to offer hospitality 
to those we love ! I ought to be offering you nothing 
but a poor little cell, and in that case, your health 
would not allow you to live with me ; but God has 
allowed me to be able to give you quarters in a palace 
where you will have splendid air, lovely streams, cool 
shade, food suited to your state of health, in fact, all 
that one of the great ones of the earth could offer you 
in his castle. Fortunately, it is God's will which has 
driven me here in spite of myself, otherwise I really 
don't know what would happen me in the next world. 

I have received the first five volumes of Ozanam's 
works ; I have only to get Dante and the two volumes 
of Melanges. But as I read Dante some time back, I 
am (in fact) waiting only for the Melanges. 

I shall be unable to finish my work without having 
read them, for I want to become thoroughly acquainted 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 205 

with that beautiful mind. I have already finished 
reading and noting the first volume of La Civilization 
an Cinquieme Siecle, and I am delighted with it. 

It is true, one sees a difference between the first les- 
sons which he corrected, and those of which we only- 
have the short-hand copy, but it is all fine, full of 
ideas and dash, sound in point of learning, and backed 
up by real eloquence. I consider these lessons supe- 
rior to those of M. M., even setting aside the question 
of truthfulness ; at least they sustain the comparison 
with advantage. There is more soul in them, and 
consequently more eloquence. 

Let me hear about your health. Does the improve- 
ment still continue ? Are you any stronger ? Have 
you the courage to do nothing, to walk about, to sleep 
well ? If you but knew how useful it is in life to 
lose time properly. Look at Ozanam. What a dif- 
ference, if instead of forcing life like he did, he had 
slept eight hours a day, and worked but six, he would 
be still alive, he would still have thirty years before 
him, that is to say, six hours work, multiplied by 
three hundred and sixty-five days, and this multiplied 
by thirty. I don't know whether in my case it is 
laziness or human calculation, but with exception of 
those very rare cases in which a thing must be com- 
pleted at any price, I have a horror of hurrying and 



206 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

going against the natural distribution of things. 
Every day brings its work and its rest in happy suc- 
cession ; they both tend to make each other enjoyable, 
and the soul, ever active, ripens ' in perpetual youth. 
I sometimes fancy this is self-indulgence, and yet look 
where the contrary system leads to. 

Are you quite sure that when you give way to 
your intense ardor, that you do so for God, and not 
through an unavowed desire to be some one, and to 
write ? 

Pride is very ingenious, as is also, I must allow, 
the pleasure of taking things easily. God, knowing 
this, has prepared thorns for every combination, and 
by trying to escape the one, we come upon the others. 

Adieu, my dear friend, I do not tell you how much 
I love you. I am becoming more and more fearful 
of expressing what I feel, but do not let the coldness 
of my style deceive you. My style is like my manner; 
it sometimes seems icy because sadness or doubt come 
upon me at the moment when I am other at heart. 
Adieu. 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 207 



LXX. 

dponttuct of it gounjg (Ecclesiastic in dime of 
gwotutton.— %\u Wxx\n of jIUence. 

Soreze, October 26, 1855. 
My dear Friend, 

I DO not think you ought to make any difficulty 
about laying aside the clerical dress if grave events 
should overtake you in Italy. You have no post 
there, no duty of representing the Church binds you, 
and besides, in that country questions are so compli- 
cated with matters foreign to religion, that it would 
be difficult to say for what cause one would die. 
During our first revolution the most virtuous and 
heroic priests made no difficulty about laying aside 
the marks of their priesthood, and no one ever thought 
of blaming them for it. I was told that in 1848 a 
respectable-looking old man, upon meeting an eccle- 
siastic in his dress, said to him, " Sir, when a man 
has the honor to wear a dress like yours, he ought 
not to expose it lightly to the outrages of the crowd." 
This saying struck me. It seemed to me just, and I 
think that by taking it for the rule of your conduct, 
should things require it, you will do well before God 

and men* 
18 



208 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

With regard to expressing your opinions upon 
political and religious matters, you ought to be ex- 
tremely reserved, and not communicate them even to 
honorable men who would seem to open their hearts 
to you. 

Italy is a prey to unheard-of agitation, and a word, 
which in France would be harmless, might cause more 
than inconvenience. You must learn in these days 
to be reserved. Frankness does not require you to 
betray yourself. It is one thing to lie, and another 
to be silent. Silence is a great virtue. It is only 
cowardly when honor obliges us to break it; and 
honor does not oblige us to this in conversations 
where we give vent to our opinions for the simple 
pleasure of doing so. I, perhaps more than most men, 
have expressed my opinion loudly, and frequently to 
no purpose ; but by God's grace I ordinarily observed 
great moderation in my way of expressing it. I never 
like to hurt any one, and that is why I have passed 
through many dangers without doing myself over- 
much damage. Reserve in our opinions, or at least 
in the manner of putting them, is a prudence in which 
there is more heroism than in the hasty expression of 
our personal feelings. Charity in the Christian is an 
unction which softens many things; and which in 
softening them brings them nearer the calm resort of 
truth. 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 209 

I trust, my dear friend, that your stay at Pisa will 
do you good. Keep your own interior ; walk about ; 
read old books out of the reach of your storms ; pray 
to God, think of me, and be sure that I will never 
forget you a single day of my life. 



LXXI. 

£idm*88 in feik— ®to (Sift of cjfaiifu 

Soreze, November 15, 1855. 
My dear Friend, 

THE fit of melancholy you experienced upon set- 
ting foot in a strange land did not surprise me. 
When a man travels in foreign countries through 
curiosity, rapidly, or for some ends which interests 
and occupies him, he can easily put up with absence 
from his native land. The case is not the same when 
he goes there sick, to stay in one place without know- 
ing what will happen him, nor how long he will 
have to stay. 

This is a prospect which produces a very painful 
impression, and in no way compensates for the ab- 
sence of his family, his friends, and a certain some- 
thing which makes his native clime, however sad, 
sweeter than any other. This is why I should have 



210 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

preferred your not leaving France. Hyeres offered 
everything needful for your recovery. But since the 
step is taken, you must get the upper hand, and fight 
stoutly against home-sickness. God will help you, 
if you ask Him, and my memory, although a very 
small thing beside that of God, will contribute its 
share. 

Your visit to the military hospital in order to 
overcome your grief, charmed me. You are quite 
right. It is the sight of great sufferings which shows 
us most clearly our own ingratitude to God. For, 
what are our misfortunes in comparison with those 
suffered by so many other men in body and mind ? 
We have the faith. How priceless is not even this 
single gift ! In proportion as I get to know men, I 
cannot tell you the effect produced upon me by this 
thought, I have the faith ! The Epistles of St. Paul, 
which I read with greater pleasure every day, make 
me more and more enamored of truth. It is an ocean 
of which God is the shore. 

Adieu, my very dear friend, do not forget me in 
your exile, as I shall not forget you, however distant 
you may be. I am wrong to say you are distant 
since you inhabit the place nearest myself. 



LETTERS TO TO UNG MEN. 211 

LXXII. 

«or» mm 

Soreze, January 8, 1856. 

My deae Friend, 

YOUR letter of the fifth of December was reprov- 
ing me from my portfolio, when that of the 
twenty-sixth came to fill up the measure of my in- 
gratitude. Notwithstanding, therefore, all the work 
of the beginning of a year, I cannot forego the pleas- 
ure of writing a few lines to you to embrace you. 

How delightfully simple, artless, innocent, and 
everything else you are to talk to me about writing 
more books ! It is quite evident you are not at the 
mercy of two hundred scholars who have a right to 
walk into your room from morning till night for very 
important trifles, and then to force upon you, at the 
moment you least expect it, a grave, a very grave 
case, which tortures you to know whether to be firm 
or lenient, terrible or kind. Let me inform you, Sir 
Laid-up, that I have never known how to do two 
things at a time, and that is precisely the reason of 
my being in good health without having to lose my 

time. If I were to do what you say, I should write 
18* 



212 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

a very imperfect book, and have a college still worse 
than the book. 

But then, you will say, years are stealing by, your 
hair is growing gray. That is true, and it would 
really weigh on my mind if my own will had brought 
*me here. As I am certain that it is God's will I 
should be here, I abandon myself to His adorable 
guidance, leaving to Him my years for what they are 
worth, and my projects for what they are worth too. 
Doubtless if I were my own master, I should imme- 
diately shut myself up and take part in the great 
religious and political questions of the day, but God 
has not so willed it. Since 1830, just a quarter of a 
century ago, my life has been a continual torment, with- 
out leisure, without a distinct horizon, without connec- 
tion, almost without country. I have been driven 
forward like a leaf by the wind, and I am so accus-. 
tomed to this, that Soreze, where I should like to die, 
seems to me but a tent for a day. God will tear me 
away from it as He has done from all the rest, and it 
is not probable that He will do so in order to let me 
write in peace in a room of my own choice. 

Don't press me, then, either to write or to love you. 
The former I can't do, the latter I do. 

I think you read the Correspondant. M. de Mon- 
talembert lias published a remarkable and courageous 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 213 

article on England, in two parts. Things are getting 
better denned. The world will at least know that 
all Catholics are not hostile to nature, liberty, and 
antiquity. 

I embrace you and love you like a son and a friend. 



LXXIII. 

©n fjtfndneaa and ^firmnwa in (^duration. 

Sir, 
rilHE advice you ask me for in your letter is already 
I written in your heart as a father and a Christian. 
In education two things are necessary, kindness and 
firmness. We must avoid both the idolatry which 
forgives everything and pets everything, as well as 
the severity which, when unremitting, repels and 
hardens the heart. In our times, the besetting sin in 
education is softness. Formerly people were perhaps 
more severe than was needful ; to-day they are not 
severe enough. I think it desirable not to keep a 
child too long under the enervating shadow of home. 
At seven years of age princes used to be handed over 
from governesses to a tutor. 

This is about the age at which a child ought to be 
weaned from the comforts of family life ? to be trained 



214 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

under masters and with equals to letters and the trials 
of life. Up to that point it is the business of the 
mother to fashion his soul to kindness, confidence, 
and piety, indelible traces which she only with the 
help of God can engrave upon it. 

These are, Sir, very simple commonplace truths, 
but a feeling of kindness which I appreciate has 
prompted you to listen to them from me. Allow me 
to thank you kindly for it, and accept the very high 
consideration with which I have the honor to be, 
Your very humble obedient servant. 



LXXIY 



StaflLcUnt for the fag is the (Ml ©hereof. 

SoRE^p, February 7, 1856. 

I DID not know, my dear friend, what had become 
of you. Your letter informs me you are at Rome. 
You did well to leave Pisa if the air did not agree 
with you ; but I am doubtful whether that of Rome 
will agree with you, at least during the summer, 
which has always appeared to me intolerable in that 
city. Moreover, it is very difficult in Rome, in the 
midst of strangers, to keep one's peace of body and 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 215 

soul. One is obliged to see, to talk a great deal, to 
exhaust one's self. Perhaps this quiet is what you 
are looking for by an instinct which you cannot define. 
You require, besides nature and books, the charm of 
conversation, the noise of ideas. But time will tell 
whether Rome agrees as well with your body as with 
your heart. All that I ask you is not to go in the 
teeth of evidence, and to come back to us as soon as it 
is clear that Italy is unfavorable to you. 

You are extremely kind to talk to me about the 
book you would like to see me writing,* In the 
meantime here is a little news ; I have promised the 
Correspondant my eight unpublished Conferences at 
Toulouse. You know that this was the beginning of 
the moral doctrine. 

The first will appear on the 25th of March and so 
on, every two months. So you see this is at least 
something. I do not know when the rest will come. 
You talk very comfortably about my leisure. But if 
you only knew the perpetual cares which surround 
me ! Great works are not the only ones which kill 
time ; a constant succession of little ones does it per- 
haps more effectually. How many hours taken up 
by letters, interviews, trifles! How many others 
given up to thinking and planning ! Then contra- 
* Lettres k un jeune homme sur lq, vie CJiretienne. 



216 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

dictions which put us out, deceptions which try us. 
Be assured, my dear friend, that I have got a tolerable 
burden, and that it would be really difficult for me 
to carry another on top of it. 

To write for God in my cabinet, is undoubtedly a 
dream capable of touching me. But shall I ever get 
this time of rest in the midst of quiet and useful 
action ? I don't know. My poor life is going as it 
came. It is no use talking to me about my youth. 
I have still a certain amount of vigor left, it is true, 
and judging by the ordinary run of things, a few 
years before me ; but they will soon be at an end, and 
probably before I am able to do what you want me. 

Write to me soon, give me plenty of news about 
yourself, and allow me to tell you that I love you. 



LXXV. 



|)arfg Wiolmtt.—$tna in <&tL 

Soreze, March 31, 1856. 
My deak Fkiend, 

YOU did well to draw up. The subject handled 
by you is a delicate one, at least in the form 
adopted by you. You have time before you ; have 
patience and know how to wait for the time when 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 217 

you will be freer and more master of your thought. 
What you have seen around you is but the usual 
sight afforded by the world. Even formerly persecu- 
tion of unrelished views was much worse than to-day ; 
cabal and party-men had means at their disposal 
which they have no longer. Now they can scarcely 
do more than insult and calumniate. 

By the way, don't admire me for keeping quiet at 
the attacks made upon what I said of Ozanam's share 
in the foundation of the society of St. Vincent of 
Paul ; these attacks are unknown to me, or at least I 
only know them by the answers made to them. The 
Gazette de Lyons has lately published several articles 
in favor of the truth ; and I have had sent to me the 
original of a declaration signed by the members of the 
first Paris conference, at St. Etienne du Mont, in 
default of the four first companions of Ozanam still 
living. These four keep silent, whether it be that 
their antecedents oblige them, or that they are unwill- 
ing to assume the title of founders with Ozanam. 

I told you then that my silence was not very meri- 
torious, since I did not know of the attacks. This is 
not haughtiness on my part. Were I in presence of 
adversaries whom I thought honest, and whose opinion 
I valued, I should consider it my duty to answer and 
explain. But when I see men trample upon a beloved 



218 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

and venerated tomb, because the great servant of God 
whose remains lie there did not share the apostasy 
and fury of our pretended champions of the Church, 
T do not feel even contempt : / look and pass on, 
according to Dante's advice. 

Late events have thoroughly disenchanted me with 
this world and its opinions ; I live solely in the 
future and in eternity. It is there that disappears all 
the empty anger of parties, there that we get strength 
enough not even to think of them. When the travel- 
ler crosses the Alps, there is a moment when the first 
breezes from Italy bespeak the neighborhood of that 
great and lovely land ; he stops to inhale their per- 
fumes, and forgets the chilly blasts he has left behind. 
Oh, how good God is to those who seek Him alone ! 
Endeavor, my dear child, to live in this region, to 
become very calm in it, not to fall asleep in a deceit- 
ful peace, but to gain there the strength which knows 
how to wait, which believes and combats. Watch 
your words carefully ; do not multiply your connec- 
tions. Borne is a tomb, the tomb of the martyrs, we 
must know how to hide ourselves in it. Whilst there, I 
never saw any one but the Pope, every one else was 
a stranger to me. It was solitude which saved me 
from my enemies — she is still to-day my asylum. 

Adieu, my dear friend, the fine weather is coming, 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 219 

I hope you will come to Soreze to get your two studies, 
and the effusions which my heart has always in store 
for you. 



LXXVI. 

"Itotite Judtraw"— (Ktmngettal jJwriMaa. 

Soreze, August 24, 1856. 

I AM very much pleased with what you tell me 
touching your relations with M. X. You see 
how cautious we must be in judging souls, and how 
well borne out is that saying of our Lord, " Nolite 
judicare." We priests who have to do with souls, 
and know their secrets, cannot be like worldly people 
whose judgments are so ready and so cruel. You 
have yourself seen a soul which you judged disadvan- 
tageously. You thought it was returning to God, or 
at least moved by His grace, and appreciated properly 
the conduct of those who, instead of encouraging it, 
sated it with bitterness and outrages. 

This will be a lasting lesson for you, my dear 
friend. It will teach you the value of that kindness 
of heart which looks at good rather than bad quali- 
ties, which conceives hopes more readily than fears, 

and which instead of irritating wounds, heals them 
19 



220 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

with the oil of the good Samaritan. One of my 
sweetest consolations on the decline of my career is 
the certainty of never having insulted or galled any 
one even whilst defending the truth energetically and 
passionately. I scarcely remember ever having been 
hard, except in the case of a few contemporary princes, 
and even so, I think the frightful persecutions carried 
on by Russia, Holland, and other countries, against 
our brethren, justified me. Open persecutors have 
not, doubtless, a right to the same gentle treatment 
as other stray souls ; and I am certain that among 
our contemporaries the conversion of no one will have 
been endangered or retarded through my fault. 

Your two roses appeared lovely to me. I have put 
them into a little corner where there are very few 
things, and things which I value highly. 

Adieu, my very dear friend, I embrace and lovt 
you. 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 221 



LXXVII. 

Jttontion to gealtlt.— <$iw propositions %tl- 
ntm to the Jfmtrh Jtratoir* 

Soreze, November 10, 1856. 
My dear Friend, 

YOUR letter informed me of your departure for 
Rome, and now you are awaiting my rather 
backward answer there. Here it is. 

Let me first of all tell you that I am delighted at 
the good news you give me of your health. You are 
better, what a consolation ! How glad I should be to 
see you with that vigor which God has given me ! 
But be it said for your consolation that I was not 
always so. Time was when I was very delicate, 
very pale, and quite unable to walk about the streets 
of Paris. It is the continuance of a regular life, 
made up of work, journeying, and rest, which has 
brought me to my present state of health, not forget- 
ting a delightful illness which, when I was thirty- 
nine, cleared me of an old leaven which was doubt- 
less working in my body. Let me beg of you, then, 
to get into a uniform, simple, and calm way of living. 
Never work at night, sleep well, There is no use in 



222 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

killing one's self writing instead of securing seventy 
years of a well employed life. It is perfectly as- 
tounding what may be done with time, if we have 
patience enough to wait and not hurry. 

I am very much obliged to M. Ampere for think- 
ing of me. I have already been spoken to about the 
French academy. I did not decline these overtures, 
because it seems to me that religion would gain by 
having, if possible, a monk in the first literary body 
in the world. 

This same feeling, as well as that of civic duty, 
made me accept a seat in the constituent Assembly ; 
and notwithstanding my being obliged, as the position 
was a false one, to resign it, still I never repented 
having taken place for a moment in presence of the 
revolution. Neither do our rules forbid the accept- 
ance of literary honors, and I do not think our most 
Reverend General would refuse me the authorization 
I should require from him. All this, be it well un- 
derstood, arises from no preconceived shifts or desires 
I only think of the academy at the moment it is 
mentioned to me. 

Our centenary will take place on Wednesday, 11th 
of April next. I hope, my dear friend, you will 
manage matters so as to be at it. You are down 
upon the list among the friends of the school. We 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 223 

shall keep a room for you, as well as for all our 
guests who come from a distance. You will receive 
in due time the official invitation, and later on the 
programme of the festival, if you accept it. 

I laughed heartily at your taunt about my admin- 
istrative grufthess. Write frequently to me, without 
being intimidated by my magistral position, and rest 
assured that I love you like a simple mortal. 



LXXVIII. 

Spn Vttt l#*th of a jfomu § ujrtl. 

Soreze, March 17, 1857. 
Sir, 

SINCE the misfortune which has fallen both upon 
you and us, I have frequently thought of writing 

to you. But, each time, I felt my powerlessness to 

■ 
console a father in so great and lawful a grief, and I 

preferred not to open anew, by my letter, so fresh a 

wound. Still, I venture to do so, and to tell you 

how deeply I felt the stroke which deprived you of 

a son, and us of a well-loved pupil. I may even say 

that I never experienced deeper or more heartfelt 

emotion; and every time I picture to myself that 
19* 



224 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN 

dear child upon his death-bed, I again feel my heart 
give way. He was the first pupil snatched from me 
by death, and I could scarcely have believed that be- 
tween them and us the bonds were so strong. It is 
true that this poor young man was under my spirit- 
ual direction, and that by this confidential intimacy 
he had obtained a greater place in my heart. You 
had formed in him a really Christian soul, even more 
so than I thought. His faith and piety during that 
sorrowful passage were extraordinary, and God sus- 
tained him during it by an intervention of His grace, 
so to speak, visible. 

This must be to you, Sir, not only a subject of hope, 
but of certainty, and at the same time a powerful con- 
solation. For when one knows life and all its perils, 
it is a difficult thing to promise one's self that a young 
man will come safely out of them, and that he will 
always carry before God, on his death, a safe and 
peaceful conscience. 

To die young and spotless is one of God's graces. 
Reason does not tell us so ; but faith does, and yours 
is great enough to understand this language. I hope, 
therefore, that it will give you the victory in this 
trial, and that you will receive upon the head of your 
second son the blessing of the first and the merit of 
his death. 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 225 



LXXIX. 

%m xxx i\xt ^fitter*. 

Dear Friend, 

YOU are good and amiable in all you tell me. I 
should be glad to see you every day, and I can 
scarcely get a look at you once a year. God, who 
united us, has separated us, and I do not know 
whether He will ever again bring us together for 
good .and all. 

This trial in which we are may be a long one, and 
if any sudden event brings us out of it, no one can 
say what the result may be. France and Europe are 
too far from Jesus Christ, the living stone, to effect 
anything lasting. Where Christ is not believed in, 
faith is weak, vacillating, without foundation. Now 
we cannot hope that this divine faith will suddenly 
regain its ground. The greatest catastrophes move 
men for a moment, nations lift their head, they look 
around and listen, then sink again, at the first glimpse 
of peace, into listlessness of soul. We must then 
make up our minds to look upon the present as lost 
and think of the future. The future, however dis- 
tant, is still humanity, and a finer field, because re- 



226 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

quiring more foresight and faith. When I read one 
of the beautiful pages of antiquity, I admire the power 
of man at such a distance from himself. Jerusalem, 
Athens, Plato, Cicero, still move us, and although 
every one cannot pretend to write immortal things, a 
man can at least leave his bones on the good side. 
The soul, moreover, sees and acts from on high ; she 
leaves her traces, how faint soever, in the events 
which arise from century to century, and if she be 
prepared to help them on the side of truth and jus- 
tice, she enjoys it as a work in which she has an eter- 
nal share. 

Live then in the future ; it is the great asylum, and 
the great lever. How long did not and does not God 
live in it ? I will therefore make an appointment in 
it with you for the eleventh of August, and embrace 
you tenderly. 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 227 

LXXX. 

gk> a fupit of the ^rftflol of £tor*2** 

Soreze, August 24, 1857. 
My dear Friend, 

I DID, in fact, pass close to your place, and I was 
tempted to go and see you, but I was in a hurry 
and with friends, and I confined myself to giving a 
look at your house. It was but little, but it was, not- 
withstanding, a serious and cordial remembrance. 
So you have launched out into the world ; the only 
link between you and your youthful days is the 
memory of the past. I trust its fruits will not perish 
in you, that you will remain a firm Christian, and 
that you will never forget the master who urged you 
on to good. For my part, my dear friend, I shall 
always remember the days Ave passed together, and the 
consolation you afforded me in a new and difficult 
career. I remain sincerely attached to you, whether 
you remain in the world, or whether your vocation 
become stronger and lead you back to me by another 
road. 

I have but one wish in this regard ; it is that you 
may clearly know the will of God, and have the cour- 
age to follow it, whatever it may be. Adieu, I em- 



228 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

brace you and renew the expression of my affection 
for you. 

LXXXI. 

Against (Ennui and gtothuas.— 8fo a § upit 
of $oxm. 

Soreze, November 2, 1857. 
My very dear Child, 

YOUR letter crossed mine, which you must have 
already received. Your first word was a sad 
one, and that is natural. I never changed quarters 
in my life without experiencing great depression of 
spirits. Besides, neither the past nor the future attach 
you to your new life. You have adopted it out of 
obedience and not conviction ; whilst at Soreze your 
memories, your affections and plans kept your heart 
always warm, and naturally prevented the days from 
feeling heavy. But, my dear child, you will not give 
way to these first impressions. You must set to work 
in good earnest, and give yourself more than ever to 
God. This is the resting-place of every man, but 
yours especially, since you have received in a greater 
degree than others the gift of knowing and loving the 
things of the invisible and eternal order. After having 
been your consolation at Soreze, God must be your 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 229 

strength in your new position. Read assiduously the 
Gospel, the Acts and Epistles of the Apostles. You 
will find there, in the long run, a delicious bread 
which will give you a distaste for all others. Think, 
too, of me, who will never cease to love you. 



LXXXII. 

%Mu to a goung Pan upon fans %\\t. 

Sir and dear former Pupil, 

J HAVE handed over to the institute of Soreze 
your request to be admitted as a member of the 
Soreze association. It took your request into con- 
sideration in its capacity of Central Committee of the 
Association, and elected you. The notification will 
shortly be forwarded to you. I was pleased at this 
mark of your attachment to the school, and trust that 
some day it will again see you within its walls. 

Since you ask me for advice on occasion of your 
shortly going to Paris, I send you the following. I 
should recommend you first of all to go and see the 
Rev. Father Chocarne, who was at one time your 
chaplain. He is at present prior of our Paris Con- 
vent, near the Luxembourg, and would be very glad 
to see you. The first thing every Christian ought to 



230 LETTERS TO YO UN G MEN 

have, wherever he may be, is a father, a master, a 
spiritual friend. This is the first thing you have to 
find. You want a heart devoted to you, and able to 
keep you in the right path. In the second place you 
must have the society of young men of your own age. 
Chance may throw you in the way of a good set, just 
as it may throw you into company unworthy of you. 

By becoming a member of a Division of the Society 
of St. Vincent de Paul, you will be sure to be right. 
There is also near our convent a society of students, 
called the Cercle Catholique, where, if you become a 
member, you would find a library, rooms for amuse- 
ment and conversation, and every kind of help 
towards passing your leisure time agreeably and 
virtuously. 

If you think proper, Father Chocarne could intro- 
duce you to the president of the Society. I should 
write to him myself, if the religious I have just 
mentioned were not a representative of my affection, 
who will do all I should have done myself. 

Such, my dear friend, is my advice. If you follow 
it, you will cling fast to the good principles you 
imbibed at the school of Soreze, and these principles, 
by fencing in your morals, and strengthening your 
character, will enable you to escape the perils of the 
liberty upon which you are about to enter. 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 231 

If you issue from those dangers faithful, good and 
religious, your whole life will benefit by it ; you will 
be thoroughly grounded in the principles of truth and 
honor. Alas ! how many young men like you perish 
without wishing it, from weakness which did not 
know where to look for support, which enjoyment 
increased, and which having become by habit a second 
nature, leaves them no last resource but those immense 
graces which God sometimes grants at the hour of 
death. I trust this will not be your case. You will 
struggle against yourself; you will remember your 
Soreze days, my affection for you, and I shall some 
day find you what I hope you will be. 

I commend you to God, your best friend, and 
renew to you the expression of my devoted affection. 



LXXXIII. 

(Munition.— protestantism. 

My dear Friexb, 

I HA YE received your three letters. As you have 
. been informed, our retreat went off very well, and 
I have never yet seen so beautiful a general com- 
munion. Many of the old pupils, hitherto considered 
20 



232 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. . 

the worst, have been completely changed. This is 
not the first time, thank God, that I have witnessed 
these metamorphoses, which proves to me how very 
slow we must be in despairing of a pupil and of 
branding him as incorrigible. So long as his expul- 
sion is not absolutely necessary, he ought to be kept, 
watched over, and prayed for. The greatest consola- 
tion of masters is precisely the conversion of the bad, 
just as the greatest consolation of God is, according 
to the Gospel, the return of sinners. 

You now see clearly the results of an education 
different from the one you have yourself received ; the 
absolute want not only of religion, but of elevated 
ideas, an abject materialism, and a nameless degrada- 
tion of mind. You must not be astonished if you 
meet with young Protestants whose faith and mind 
are in better condition. There are sincere Protes- 
tants, just as well as good Catholics. It Is probable 
that those of whom you speak have been brought up 
in their families, or under preserving influences, just 
as you yourself were. It may be that, humanly 
speaking, the Protestant faith is easier to keep than 
our own, precisely because it is in great part human, 
and requires of nature but tiny sacrifices outside the 
common moral law. 

This is undoubtedly one of the things which upholds 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 233 

Protestantism. It gives religion in small doses. This 
suits minds for which reason is not enough, and real 
faith a great deal too much. 



LXXXIY. 

on Jjatkr §t lUmpan, 

My dear Friend, 

MDE MONTALEMBERT had already given 
I me the same hint as yourself on occasion of 
Father de Ravignan's death ; and when your letter 
came to hand, my pages were just starting for Paris. 
Consequently you may make your mind easy ; it is 
done, and that with hearty good will. I had no 
constant intercourse with Father de Ravignan, but I 
was always happy to see him. Besides, we really 
belonged not only to the same pulpit, but to the same 
sphere of action, notwithstanding the shades which 
always distinguish men one from another. 

He is a very great loss, although the state of his 
health did not allow him to act up to the intensity of 
his zeal. Our ranks are daily thinning ; those ranks 
of the second period of the nineteenth century, in 
which we have won the freedom of the religious life, 



234 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

and freedom of education. A third period has begun ; 
God alone knows what it will be, and what men He 
will give us for His work ! 

M. de Montalembert had spoken to me about the 
words used by Mgr. the Bishop of Orleans. I thank 
you for mentioning them to me. Had it not been 
for you, I should probably not have heard them, or at 
least have heard them too late : I have written to 
thank him. 

My editor is binding a copy of my works for the 
Holy Father. I intend sending them, with a letter, 
through the Paris Nunciature, unless you know a 
better way. It seems to me the simplest and the most 
usual for all kinds of communications. 

The young man of my Lettres sur la Vie Chretienne 
will be called Emmanuel ; it is a scriptural name, 
and seemed to me a fitting one. It is moreover that 
of a young man who has just left Soreze, to whom I 
was attached on account of his piety and good temper. 

Adieu, my dear friend, I embrace you tenderly in 
Him whom we both serve. 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 235 

LXXXV. 

SRtmrg IRasfwpims — 8fo n pupil of $Mm. 

Soreze, June 25, 1858. 

YOUR short stay at the school, a month ago, gave 
me great consolation. I forgot all that had ever 
given me pain, and am persuaded of the uprightness 
and goodness of your heart. I highly approve of your 
intention of collecting the masterpieces of our lan- 
guage ; it would do you no harm to add to them one 
or two Latin authors, for instance, Virgil and Taci- 
tus, and a few of Cicero's treatises. The reading of 
literary masterpieces not only forms the taste, it keeps 
the soul in elevated regions, and prevents it from 
sinking down into the vulgarity of mere material and 
gentlemanly occupations. Every remarkable man 
has been fond of letters. 

The reading of the Bible will be very advantageous 
to you, and I strongly recommend it. 

You did not mention anything about your positive 

practices of religion. You must have a regular time 

for your confessions and communions, and in general 

for all your religious practices, of what nature soever. 

Regularity and perseverance alone produce lasting 

results. 

20* 



236 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

Adieu, my dear friend, pray for me. Do not for- 
get the graces God has given you, and believe me 
yours most cordially devoted. 



lxxxyi. 

Sffjjott the (Jhoke of a <J[mnu\ 

Soreze, July 13, 1858. 
My dear Child, 

T DON'T see anything in the way of your liking 
one of your companions better than the rest, pro- 
vided that your affection remains within the bounds 
of a sincere and pure feeling. It is even difficult to 
love many persons quite equally ; nature is averse to 
this kind of symmetry. Usually, she leans to one 
side more than another. The thing is, even in the 
warmest affections, to remain masters of ourselves, 
and submissive in everything to the law of God, be- 
cause we must love God above all things, and never 
break one of his commandments for the sake of any 
one. When one of your companions offers you his 
friendship, and asks you for yours, you ought to see 
carefully what he is, and not look solely to external 
advantages. If he is solidly Christian, virtuous, and 
good-tempered, and you, on the other hand, feel your- 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 237 

self drawn towards him by an honorable sympathy, 
nothing prevents you from responding. 

But in this case you ought to keep to your engage- 
ments, and be careful not to go from one to another, 
which is the mark of an inconstant heart, and of one 
incapable of deep feelings. 



LXXXVIL 

d k Jap of a |pure djjonariijttr*. 

My deae Friend, 

WHAT you tell me touching your fidelity to your 
religious duties, and your resisting the attacks 
of the evil spirit, is the greatest consolation to me. I 
can really say that I have the heart of a father for 
you, on account of your progress in virtue, and the 
generous manner in which you have requited my 
care. God has evidently taken possession of you ; 
you love Him, and He loves you in return. For 
this reason, my dear child, your heart has become the 
abode of happiness. All your loving faculties have 
been refined, and they are, in fact, what constitutes 
happiness. Debauchery is nothing but frightful self- 
ishness, which kills everything tender and lofty in us. 



238 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

Real love, far from being willing to tarnish by vice 
the object loved, would readily suffer death for this 
object of a real worship, and this disinterested purity 
is rewarded by a dilation of soul Avhich is interior 
joy. This is what you feel, and I myself experience 
at it a joy equal to your own. 



LXXXYIII. 

jpwtrg ujj<m tlttf Death u| (BJtrat. 

Soreze, October 18, 1858. 
My dear Friend, 

HOW thankful I was for your little remem- 
brancer. I should have answered you imme- 
diately, but just fancy, for the last three weeks I have 
been turned into a scribe, a regular clerk, reading 
letters, answering them, employing a secretary, and 
ready to dictate like Caesar, to four in different styles. 
What will most astonish you is, that I have filled the 
post of clerk precisely as though I was a supernume- 
rary of the register office. 

I say to myself, it is the will of God, and I am at 
ease. 

My dear child, listen to this : — 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 239 

Whilst Christ in agony on Calvary's height 

"Was saving in His love the human race, 

Earth yawned, the day-star hid his wonted light, 

And from the bloody drama turned his face ; 

The temple shook,_ the sanctuary's pride 

In naked emptiness the people saw, 

Hell roared, and heaven — no, heaven not even sighed, 

And death adored Him whom now gave it law, 

All save the sinner trembled at that hour, 

He saw, nor owned these tokens of God's power. 

If after this you attempt to tell me that I am not 
a poet, you will strain the truth clearly. 

Adieu, my very dear child, take care of yourself, 
love me, and above all admire my poetry. I embrace 
you. 



LXXXIX. 

©he two Joints. 

Soreze, October 18, 1858. 
Sir, 

THE information contained in the volume you ' 
have been so kind as to dedicate to me, was quite 
unfamiliar to me. The origin of the White Peni- 
tents of Avignon, their history, their rules, and the 
remarkable part taken in this foundation by my ances- 
tors of the Dominican Order. The perusal of your 
work has touched me deeply. I am convinced, Sir, 
like yourself that we must oppose to the associations 



240 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN 

of evil associations of good ; to the delirium of pride 
and the senses the opposite delirium. I never read a 
sentence of St. Paul, after having read Cicero, without 
admiring with what elevation and clearness the mind 
of God has confronted the mind of man. This single 
comparison suffices to convince me of the divinity of 
Christianity. How much more so the difference 
between the works of reason and those of faith ! 
Your "White Penitents of Avignon" has afforded 
me this pleasure. I trust their resurrection will be 
worthy of their cradle, and that if princes are no 
longer to be met with under their habit, we shall still 
find under it generous souls, capable of loving Jesus 
Christ, and of bearing His opprobrium extra castra, 
as St. Paul says, that is in presence of the world. 



xc. 

Spit tttt Death of a fljjhrfetiatt goung Jfffam 

Soreze, December 28, 1858. 
Madam, 

MHEINRICH informs me of the misfortune 
§ which has betallen you both. He had fixed 
on your son a really Christian affection, and hopes 
precious to his faith. Death has destroyed all, It 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 241 

has snatched from you a son in the flower of his age, 
wh$n all his qualities, his piety and abilities seemed 
to mark him out as your honor, your consolation, and 
your life. It is a grievous stroke, madam, and did 
you not know God as you do, we should have to fear 
that you would not be able to bear it with resigna- 
tion. But our God having Himself suffered the death 
of His Son, we find in that example wherewith to 
comfort the mother's heart, and to show her that 
even such cruel grief is not beyond the influence of 
the views of faith. 

When a son is lost whose future is doubtful, we 
may believe that God wished to save him, and that 
death was to him the means to a happy eternity. 
When, on the contrary, he was pure and holy, we 
may believe that he was a victim for the salvation of 
others, and that his blood will weigh in the balance 
in which God judges the world. Your son was 
desirous of serving the Church, he aspired to write 
for her, he has left traces of this inclination to serve 
the great cause of Christian truth : now, however 
great the success of his labors, would he ever have 
done better than to die young before having done 
anything ? His soul is the work which he has carried 
before God. It is the work which he has left to you, 
to his friends, to those who had hopes of his talents 



242 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

and his devotedness. No one can ever do anything 
better, madam, than to die for God. It is sacrifice, 
it is martyrdom which has founded the Christian 
religion, and which sustains it. Your maternal grief 
forms part of the sacrifice your son has made : he has 
offered to Jesus Christ your tears, and mingled with 
his blood, they have been a joy to heaven and a 
blessing to earth. 

Enter then, madam, into these pious and sweet 
thoughts. Follow the Mother of God up to Calvary, 
in order to await with her the day of the resurrection. 
I beg of you to excuse these lines which y^ou desired. 
Although no Christian is a stranger to any other 
Christian, I should not have ventured to write them 
had not friendship forced my hand. Pray accept 
them for the sake of the motive which dictates them, 
and with them the homage of the respectful senti- 
ments with which I am, 
Madam, 

Your very humble and obedient servant. 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 243 



XCI. 

Jfriendtg tiStortte.— $*xm %%m\. 

Soreze, March 4, 1859. 

I AM really afflicted, rny dear friend, at the loss 
you have sustained in -that good, amiable, and 
pious young man. His looks pleased me very much 
when you introduced him to me. He is now before 
God. How quickly everything goes forward ! I am 
the only one left to love you. Why do you want me 
to tell you so ? Do you not hear me saying so every 
day ? You can have no faculty for hearing beyond 
time and space. Cicero says, I think it is in the 
Somnium Scipionis, that the stars perform music in 
their course through the heavens, and that during the 
night they may easily be heard by those who know 
how to listen. I wager you have never heard them, 
since you do not hear in my heart the music of your 
name and memory. I love yon, then, I love you, I 
love you really ! even although now and again a little 
dark cloud crosses your face, and does not leave you 
that beautiful and constant serenity I so much prize. 
I have at last obtained an imperial decree, just 

take notice, an imperial decree, with my name in full 
21 



244 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

thus set forth, Master Lacordaire. You see how 
well I stand at court! This decree authorizes the 
borough of Soreze to give me the parish church and 
the piece in front. I immediately got the front 
scraped, the holes filled up, the place paved, and at 
the present moment a beautiful railing is being made 
which will rest upon a foundation of cut stone, and 
will end in two pedestals, the gate, on which we shall 
put the statues of Pepin the Short and Louis XVI., 
the first the founder of the abbey, the second of the 
military school of Soreze. 

The railing will be up at Easter, and you will see 
it with your two bright black eyes this summer, when 
you are kind enough to come and see me. 

I was pleased with the Abbe X. 7 s article in the last 
number of the Correspondant, and I heartily approve 
of your project of undertaking with him a discussion 
of the religious questions of the day. 

I think the day is drawing near when we shall 
have to defend many things. 

Adieu, my very dear friend. I love and embrace 
you as you deserve, that is to say, very tenderly. 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 245 



XCII. 

msm, fruits, and Jiritota. 

Soreze, June 15, 1859. 
My dear Friend, 

YOUR letter announced the coming of some dah- 
lias ; they have come, and are long ago set in the 
botanical gardens. M. de T. told me they would be 
very fine, but they are not coming forward quickly, 
although we are having alternate heat and rain. 

You talk to me in the same letter of planting an 
orchard at Soreze, in a part of the park. It is true 
our vines have succeeded wonderfully in the corner 
where we planted them. But this privileged corner, 
sheltered from the sea-breeze, is the only well protected 
one in the park. Where could we put trees which 
would withstand that destroyer? Then comes the 
question of the boys. Although the Institute is select, 
and is what it ought to be, we ought not to expose 
youth to those little temptations to gluttony. 

Outside the park we should have to rent an enclo- 
sure, and then you are well aware of the amount of 
fruit that would be left us. Well, when you come to 
see us, you will perhaps be able to make out a means 



246 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

of realizing your idea, of which I feel all the impor-r 
tance. 

Our distribution of prizes will take place on Tues- 
day, the 10th of August. I shall be leaving the next 
day to visit our convents and colleges, and on the 
21st of September I shall fall back upon St. Maxi- 
min's. In case I cannot see you at Soreze, we shall 
at least meet there. 

In the meanwhile let me assure you of my constant 
affection. 

XCIII. 

®a Vat gjfavim of the (Bnhx of ^mnt 
gomimc. 

Soreze, July 11, 1859. 
Very dear Sons in our Lord, 

JEECEIYED with the liveliest consolation, on 
my birthday, the wishes you address collectively 
to me. Your filial spirit towards me is not the only 
thing in your letter which touches me ; your devoted- 
ness to our order, our dear province, to your own solid 
progress in monastic virtues, touched me too. I am 
firmly convinced that God has raised up our province 
of France to make it one day the cradle of the restora- 
tion of our order, As yet young and weak, it will 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 247 

grow gradually hy the spirit of regularity, simplicity, 
apostolic activity, denial of self and our own opinions ; 
and lastly by union of heart in the tradition of the 
province. On ray side, I will, during the years which 
Providence may give me, do all in my power to secure 
good observance and increase the flock. 

I recommend myself personally to your good pray- 
ers, and renew, very dear sons, the expression of my 
devoted sentiments in our Lord. 



xciy. 

Sfymt i\u fpaggian* njf goutJt.— % Jimtl 
fcetaeeit (Sod and the %tym. 

Soreze, September 14, 1859. 
My dear Friend, 

J LEARNED with joy from your letter that you 
had just lately been to your religious duties. 
This piece of good news really touched me, first for 
its own sake, and secondly because it proved to me 
that you were faithful to your promises, in spite of 
the seductions of the society in which you move. I 
am convinced that, if you could go to confession and 
communion once a month, wherever or in whatever 

position you might be, you would be safe. Your 
21* 



248 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

first letter, telling me of the lukewarmness into which 
you have fallen since the vacation, gave ine a great 
deal of pain, and I doubted whether you would have 
the courage to keep your promise during the month 
of September. It was therefore a great comfort to 
me to find I had miscalculated. 

You have very strong passions, sensual rather than 
elevated, unsubdued pride, extravagant love of the 
world, a yearning after ease and luxury, and finally 
wherewith to satisfy every desire ; this is the fearful 
side of your nature and your position. On the other 
hand, your faith is pure and genuine, you fear God 
and His justice, you have begun to understand the 
mystery of salvation by the cross of Jesus Christ, and 
last of all, your heart, long cold and selfish, seemed 
to me to lay itself out for the impressions of devoted- 
ness and friendship ; this is the hopeful side. You 
have still a great deal to do. More than once, you 
will excuse my saying so, I began to doubt about 
you. The first letter you wrote me was that of a 
heartless wretch ; the last two consoled me, and showed 
me I was mistaken in you. So long as you open your 
mind to me, and are not repelled by the frankness 
with which I shall lay bare your defects and vices, 
nothing will go wrong ; but the day on which you 
find me a burden to you, pride and sensuality will 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 249 

master you, and you will become capable of every- 
thing, except perhaps of dishonoring yourself accord- 
ing to worldly notions of dishonor. I say perhaps, 
because the abyss in which a soul, not straitened by 
having to work daily for bread, stands when separated 
from God, is a bottomless one. Oh, how I desire to 
save you ! How I despaired of you ! How great 
have been my efforts to give you an insight into what 
Jesus Christ is. I could have no greater consolation 
than to see you a real Christian, and although you 
will doubtless never return me all the affection I bear 
you, I shall be satisfied with knowing that you really 
love and serve God. 

Adieu, I talk freely to you ; you must get used to 
it, for correspondence which is not free is worth nei- 
ther the paper nor the time given to it. I repeat, 
and embrace you in doing so, that your two last 
letters gave me ioy. 



250 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

XCY. 

(Snrour augment in th^ <Jp£)ht. 

Soreze, September 27, 1859. 
My dear Friend, 

ON my arrival at Soreze yesterday I found your 
letter. It convinced me of two things, of your 
conversion and of your affection. I am sure you are 
converted to God, since you speak humbly of your- 
self; and not satisfied with knowing the misery and 
littleness of man in general, you recognize those two 
things in yourself, which no man can do unless en- 
lightened by the grace of Jesus Christ. You were a 
selfish and vain child, wrapped up in yourself, de- 
lighting in your name, your rank, your fortune, your 
horses ; and subject, notwithstanding your pride, to 
all the movements of depraved flesh. Now although 
there are still in you remnants of the sinful man, you 
have become humble and chaste, and consequently a 
lover of God instead of a lover of yourself. This is 
why you are really converted, and you have nothing 
to do but to keep this road, by pushing forward with 
the help of the means which have led you to your 
present position. 



LETTERS TO YO UN G MEN. 251 

Then, again, my dear friend, I am convinced of 
your affection, because you speak to me with sim- 
plicity and with the accent of the heart. Therefore, 
for the future, I should consider it a grave fault to be 
doubtful about you, notwithstanding your youth and 
your former powerlessness to love sincerely because 
you loved yourself alone. See, how I talk. Free- 
dom, a holy freedom, appears to me to be the best 
proof of attachment to a man. We talk plainly only 
to those we love. Besides, with me you are as yet 
only a child, and you are my penitent to boot. These 
two reasons, setting aside the question of friendship, 
would entitle me to treat you with the freedom I do. 
When you find my letters too severe, you may 
retaliate by burning them. I shall be seeing you 
soon, and we will go thoroughly into the question of 
your studies. 

Adieu, my very dear friend, I embrace you with 
the conviction that I know and love you. 



252 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

XCVI. 

itpn Vxt <Jpfst ©iriorhs of (pastifg. 

Tirlemo'nt, 2^&. 6, 1859. 

HOW happy I am, dear friend, at what you tell 
me touching that poor girl ! God will bless 
this victory which you have gained over yourself. 
However violent your passions, never let yourself be 
persuaded to blight another soul with the dishonor 
of them, in order to lessen, in appearance, the shame 
of your own. Happy they who have made no vic- 
tims ! They are scarce. Few are they who will pre- 
sent themselves before the judgment of God without 
having ruined any one. Youth is sacred on account 
of its perils. Respect it always. The good done by 
respecting it is of a kind which most keenly touches 
the heart of God ; for God is eternal youth, and He 
delights in those who bear for a moment, on the quick 
decline of our lives, this likeness to Himself. 

Adieu, dear friend, I expect to be returning about 
the middle of April, but what are the hopes and plans 
of man ? God alone knows why we begin, and how 
we shall end. 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 253 



XCVII. 

©n (JfmnMip m J^ms (prist. 

Soreze, October 11, 1859. 

HAVE you noticed what I have just said, ray 
dear father f You have, in fact, become my 
father since you consented to look after the spiritual 
concerns of my soul. I do not know whether you are 
like myself, but I can no longer love any one without 
the soul slipping behind the heart, and Jesus Christ 
being the uniting link. Communications no longer 
appear to me intimate, unless they become supernatu- 
ral ; for what intimacy can there be where we do not 
go to the depths of the thoughts and affections which 
fill the mind with God ? I am aware that friends do 
not confess to one another, do not help one another out 
with their penances, but make their spiritual life a 
life hidden from all eyes, even the eyes of those they 
love best. But is this really friendship? Is not 
friendship the complete gift of one's self, and when 
Jesus Christ, has become ourself, can we really give 
ourselves without giving Him who forms but one 
with us ? How can conscience be excluded from the 
gift of one's self, if that gift be complete? And how 



254 LETTERS TO YOUftG MEN. 

give one's conscience without a confession of all that 
is good and bad in us ? It is such a sweet thing to 
humble ourselves before those we love. And if pride 
keeps us back, if we put on a mask even before our 
friend, do we love him ? It is certain that confidence 
is the first element of friendship ; one might even say 
that it is but the vestibule of it, because sacrifice is 
the sanctuary : now, does confidence exist where there 
is no confession ; and is confession anything else but 
supernatural confidence? 

It was then quite natural that you should become 
my father on the day when Jesus Christ gave you 
His • priesthood, and on which you were able to ab- 
solve me from, and cure me of my faults with His 
blood. 

I am now thinking about death, and I imagine 
nothing can be sweeter in death than to be assisted by 
a priest who is our friend. Friendship so greatly 
facilitates openness, humility, and candor ! What a 
grace to die in the arms of a man who has the same 
faith as ourselves, who knows our conscience and 
loves us ! 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 255 



XCVIII. 

<©n JjuUlitg m (JfrienMtp. 

Soreze, October 20, 1859. 
My dear Friend, 

YOUR letter, in which you tell me your grief at 
my silence, crossed the answer you were expect- 
ing. This is why I was less quick in consoling you 
for my silence, which you see was not at all grounded 
upon anything internal. I was tempted to answer 
you by the single word " modicce fidei, quare dubi- 
tastif How could you doubt about me? You know 
how thoroughly yours I am by nature and grace. 
Don't give way then for the future to this uneasiness 
which does so much harm without any ground. Fi- 
delity is my most innate virtue, in the matter of 
friendship as well as in that of convictions ; and a 
man who has sacrificed his belief or his love is to me 
the object of an invincible repulsion. Consequently, 
nothing has of late more grieved me than the fickle- 
ness of souls. There are doubtless lawful conversions; 
but how many things are necessary to make a con- 
version honest and admissible! One might almost 
22 



256 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

say that God alone has the right of conversion, and 
that He alone can make it a holy thing.* 

Your change of life, my very dear friend, naturally 
saddens you. You used to live in your family, in 
the midst of tender affection; to-day you are alone, 
in a room of your own, and what is unpardonable, 
you don't tell me where that room is, so that I do 
not know where to fix my thoughts on you. I was 
even afraid that my letter addressed to your former 
residence had not reached you. Relieve me of this 
fear promptly, and tell me what lucky street has re- 
ceived your household gods. 

Tell me, too, that my letter has consoled you a 
little, and that you are no longer in that fit of mel- 
ancholy. As for myself, I have still an occasional 
attack of it, the remains of the old man ; but as I go 
forward in life, I feel my manhood and my disposition 
to rise superior to everything which may happen, on 
the increase. I have often thought that all I have 
done may be ruined, and I am used in thought to 
make the sacrifice of it, provided God and my friends 
do not abandon me. It seems to me, too, although 
this stroke would be the hardest, that if my friends 
did forsake me, I should not be unable to bear it. 
Alas ! how many infidelities have crossed me in my 

* It will easily be seen that this refers to political apostasy. 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEX. 257 

life ! Friendship is an old tree, on which I can count 
as my own but a few autumn leaves. Shall I see 
them fall ? 



XCIX. 

Jlatian Jnctepentore awl \\u S^mprat jioxr- 
mhjntg of the $a$L 

Soreze, November 5, 1859. 
My dear Friexd, 

IN the questions whi-ch have been mooted for nearly 
a year I have been guided by a double love, the 
love of the Papacy, and the love of Italy, and I have 
never had any trouble in reconciling both. It seemed 
Lo me just that Italy should snatch her independence 
from the foreigners who were oppressing her : very 
just too, that she should demand and get a more 
liberal system of government than that to which the 
domination of Austria had condemned her : but on 
the other hand I considered it very just too and very 
desirable that the Papacy should keep its temporal 
domains. These two causes were, in my opinion, 
separated only by misunderstandings and accidents, 
and I relied on Providence for the triumph of both. 
Was this the intention of the French Government? 



258 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

I believe it without venturing to assert it. Supposing 
it were not its intention, I trusted in a force greater 
than it to thwart its policy. Whatever the issue, for- 
tunate or disastrous, I remained true to the two guid- 
ing points of my convictions, the independence and 
liberty of Italy, and the preservation of the temporal 
dominions of the Papacy. Man cannot command 
facts, but he can always preserve principles in his 
heart. If Italy finally throws off the yoke of Aus- 
tria, if she gets a government in unison Avith her 
lawful wishes, and if, at the same time, Rome is 
saved, I shall thank God for it: if, on the contrary, 
one or the other of these causes is defeated through 
the fault of men, I shall regret and deplore it, but I 
shall not be accountable for it, since I shall have 
done, in my position, all that I could do for justico 
and truth. 

There are, it is true, in Italy, demagogues and ab- 
solutists : but between these two parties, just as in 
France, there are a great number of honest and 
Christian men who wish for the good of the Church 
and that of Italy ; who do not hold them to be in- 
compatible, and who are working for both. The 
future is in their hands, whatever may be the momen- 
tary deceptions into which they may be driven by the 
excesses of demagogy or by those of absolutism, 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 259 

As for yourself, my dear friend, remain calm and 
master of yourself. I am happy that solitude is be- 
ginning to reign around your body and your soul : 
for nothing is more fatal than the intoxication of 
bustle. You must have suffered through what has 
been said of you and of myself in these circumstances : 
try and make up your mind to it, whilst ever direct- 
ing your thoughts to God, justice, truth, and the 
future. Nothing is so fine as solitude in that 
company. 

I embrace you and love you very perfectly. 



C. 

IBpn his <f andulatehig for the <Jjmtrft 

Soreze, A T ov. 16, 1859. 
My dear Friend, 

I AM desirous of letting you know frankly my 
opinion with regard to the kind expressions used 
by M. X., and reported to me in your last letter. 

You may rest assured that I certainly should like 
a place in the French Academy, and that I am touched 
at the unsolicited favor with which my candidateship 

has been taken up by several of the most illustrious 

22* 



260 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

academicians. This kindness, which has sought me 
out in retreat, to gain which I did not make a single 
advance, is perhaps the only public honor awarded to 
me during my life. I say perhaps out of respect for 
the choice made of me by the town of Marseilles to 
represent it in the last Constituent Assembly. "With 
the exception of this election, I remember nothing in 
my life partaking of the nature of a public honor. 
This honor is quite compatible with my position as a 
monk. Bishops have sat in the French Academy ; 
other ecclesiastics belonging to the regular clergy have 
found a place there ; no one was surprised at it, because 
literary glory is of all things the one least fettered by 
anything like rank or condition. The Roman acade- 
mies are peopled with religious, and I know a Domin- 
ican holding a very high post at the Pontifical Court 
who is a member of the Arcadia, and is called there 
Tityrus or Melibaus. He might, then, for graver 
reasons be a member of the French Academy. 

So far so good. You will now ask me perhaps : 
Why don't you come to Paris ? Why don't you lay 
' yourself out as a candidate, since you covet the honor 
of belonging to the Academy, and you believe it com- 
patible with the modesty of the habit you wear? 
Bossuet was not so nice or so sensitive. Quite true, 
my dear friend ; but in the first place, Bossuet lived 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 261 

at court, he did not live in a school two hundred 
leagues from Paris. This is one difference already. 
He was free, and you who have lived at Soreze know 
how little time I have to myself. 

Secondly : Bossuet, since he has been brought for- 
ward, lived in a religious age : his name and his cross 
met no hostile party at the Academy : he could pre- 
sent himself without risk, his genius in his hand. 
Can I, I who neither have his genius nor live in his 
age ? Can I knock at the door of the Academy with 
the certainty of not exposing my name and my cross? 
Can I ? What certainty have I of the majority or 
minority which awaits me ? Did I expose only 
myself, I might make the sacrifice : but I carry with 
me the gods of Eome, Dii indigetes, and I carry them 
in an age which has as yet but a very questionable 
regard for them. 

Is not my honest and respected obscurity worth 
preserving from such a danger ? 

Then in the matter even of literary honors,-is it 
exactly the thing for a religious to do to seek them ? 
and if that is not out of place at Rome, is it not a 
little venturesome at Paris ? I leave it to your tact 
and friendship. Moreover, what does the Academy 
require ? To be sure of my gratitude and acceptance. 
Now it is perfectly sure of both. My word was given 



262 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

from the first day that I was told I was not altogether 
out of the question. 

Whatever happens, my dear friend, I already con 
sider myself honored at being thought of by so many 
men eminent in the literature of our country and age. 
If their votes do not raise me to the title of their col- 
league, the memory of not having been judged un- 
worthy of it by them will remain to me. 



CI. 

tEptt griarftm*nt jfoom fponoro. 

Soreze, Dec. 7, 1859. 

JBECEIVED both your letters at the same time. 
You are quite right in your opinion that no an- 
swer must be made to the article in question. It is 
better not to be aware of attacks which we mean to 
meet only by silence. 

You tell me you are dead : that is a very happy 
notion of yours. Death is an admirable shield against 
the world and self, provided it does not go too far, 
and is confined to that beautiful death which consists 
in the total absence of human ambition of whatever 
nature, little or great. It has been my constant belief 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 263 

that, with chastity, absolute disinterestedness is the 
strength, the honor, and the salvation of the priest. 
How many priests perish through desire ! They are 
pure in body, I allow, but not in soul : they belong 
to fortune, a cruel and dishonoring mistress. 

By the by, my dear friend, you seem to suppose 
that I yearned to belong to the French Academy : 
this is a mistake. I had never entertained an idea of 
it. The advances came from others, not only my 
friends, such as M. de Montalembert, and M. de Fal- 
loux, but from others, such as MM. Cousin, Villemain, 
Guizot. The question then was whether I ought to 
refuse or allow things to take their course. Madame 
Swetchine, on her deathbed, thought it would be a 
fault to refuse, because these spontaneous advances of 
eminent ftien to a monk, imply a homage to religion, 

Now ought we to reject a homage done to God in 
the person of one of His ministers, who has done 
nothing to seek it, and who can confidently say he 
never entertained a desire of it? I have adopted 
Madame Swetchine's way of thinking, although the 
honor is accompanied by an obligation, and it goes 
against the grain with me to sacrifice a single inch of 
my complete independence. 

I must tell you, my very dear friend, that I am at 
present finishing a little work upon St, Magdalen, It 



264 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

will be of about from 150 to 200 pages in 12mo, and 
the aim of it is to revive faith in and devotion to that 
great penitent, one of the patrons of our order who 
has just summoned us back to guard her tomb at St. 
Maximin's, as well as the famous grotto where she 
spent the last thirty years of her life. This publica- 
tion will appear about the end of next February. 

My dear friend, you must be at the great festival 
in May. You will come and pick me up at Soreze, 
and we will go together to St. Maximin's, then to St. 
Baume, after having assisted at the translation of St. 
Magdalen's head. Come now, I think that is a ren- 
dezvous you cannot refuse. 

I like the idea of the circumincession of thought and 
feeling you say exists between us. For Seneca said : 
"Idem sentire et velle ea demum fir ma amicitia est" 
Alas ! what a rare thing that is, and how few souls I 
have seen remain true to the programme of their 
youthful years. Don't you go and change : you would 
be the last plank of my wreck sinking beneath the 
waves. Adieu ! I embrace you, and love you " usque 
ad crucem." 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 266 

CII. 

Sfhe UJmtaaterg of £an-(!fefeiatt at Salamanca. 

Soreze, AprilS, 1860. 
Sir, 

I RECEIVED, a few days ago, the letter you were 
kind enough to write me, as well as the accompany- 
ing Spanish manuscript and pamphlet. I cannot say I 
have read the two little works, being ignorant of the 
Spanish language, which I never studied, because, 
although for the last seven years I have been close to 
the Pyrenees, I have never had occasion to cross them. 
But your good and long letter, which I understood 
very well, has given me a very sufficient notion of the 
marvels and memories of our old monastery of San 
Esteban at Salamanca. I could picture to myself too, 
very clearly, the face of the good Fray Pedro Mano- 
bel, your cicerone, and was touched at the sentiments 
the good old man expressed towards me. Of all the 
grandeur of the Dominican Order what exists in Italy 
is the sole remnant, and God only knows how long 
our monks will still inhabit those monuments built 
by their ancestors ! Antiquity is daily sinking out 
of sight beneath our steps. Everything changes, 
everything disappears, but to return. Man cannot 



266 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

destroy any of the fundamental conditions of his 
existence, and religion, which is one of them, can for 
the future exist under no other form than that of 
Christianity. 

I am obliged to you, Sir, for having thought of me 
in our old manor of Salamanca, and for having sent 
me so much valuable information about this glory of 
our Order. 

Pray accept the expression of my gratitude, as well 
as that of the high esteem with which I remain, 
Sir, 
Your very humble and devoted Servant. 



cm. 
Duties ioroante #ertrante. 

Soreze, April 23, 1860. 
My dear Friend, 

I DO not know where to address this letter, for in 
yours you do not tell me whether you are going 

to live at Toulouse or return to R- . Be 

careful to put at the head of your letters both date 
arid place. You know that I am a very precise 
methodical man, and your friendship for me will 
easily induce you to gratify me upon this point. 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 267 

The news you give me of your soul is not over- 
bad. I do not at all like to see you with companions 
whose conversation is not what it ought to be, and 
which at bottom you disapprove. I never frequented, 
even when quite young and an unbeliever, such com- 
pany ; it would have inspired me with nothing but 
contempt. You say you will only go out walking with 
them, to the theatre or restaurant : who will answer 
for your going no further ? And then, is it a slight 
thing to listen to talk more or less scandalous, when 
one knows Jesus Christ, and is desirous of serving 
Him? Alas! my poor dear friend, I am uneasy 
about you, at the thought of your being with souls 
inferior to your own ; and I would give a great deal 
to see you choose select company, such as your own 
heart must want. 

You have said nothing about the way you parcel 

out your day : your rising, your going to bed, and 

the employment of your time ; and yet this is almost 

a man's whole life. Do not forget that a" faithful 

affectionate servant is one of the greatest blessings 

God can send us, and a very important element of 

happiness. But you will only get a man of this 'ort 

by looking after his soul, that is, by teaching him to 

know and love Jesus Christ. In order to this, you 

must teach him his catechism, say your night prayers 
23 



268 LETTERS TO YOUNG ME X. 

with him every evening in your room, go to com- 
munion with him on the great festivals of the year : in 
short, be penetrated with the thought that he is of 
the same blood as yourself, and that he is your supe- 
rior if more virtuous than yourself. These practices 
may seem strange to you, and yet they were those of 
our fathers. In all mansions, not to say all well- 
ordered houses, the servants were taught the Christian 
Doctrine, they said their prayers with the family, 
they went to communion with it on the good festivals , 
according to the expression of the time. Such were 
the customs of our. ancestors, and consequently their 
servants grew old in the family. Take an interest 
then, my dear friend, in the soul of your servant, like 
I did in your own. Try to free it from its swathing 
bands, to raise and purify it: you will gather the 
fruit of it. Are not your relations with me a proof 
of what I say ? What were you to me or I to you 
before God inspired me with the thought of saving 
your soul. 

Your soul gradually opened out; it understood 
Jesus Christ, it gave itself: you are become a young 
man capable of loving and of being loved. Now what 
we have done together you may do with a being infe- 
rior to you in birth and fortune, but your equal before 
God and the gospel. If you were a libertine, you 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 269 

would not hesitate to let your servant into your vices, 
and make use of him as an instrument of the vilest 
passions : how, being a Christian, could you blush at 
humbling yourself before him for virtue's sake ? 

Do not forget, my very dear friend, the funda- 
mental question of confession and communion. With- 
out these two arms your life is lost. 

Adieu, my dear friend, be good, sincere, loving, 
and penitent. The humiliations of penance will have 
to preserve you from the perils you are about to en- 
counter. I embrace you as my child, and assure you 
of the deep sentiments God has given me for you. 



ciy. 
on IpantJmsm, 

Soreze, May 2, 1860. 
My dear Friend, 

I HAVE just read your letter and your philosophi- 
cal essay. That production pleased me very much ; 
it is solid, a^d written in a way to captivate the 
imagination, a very great point in the high regions of 
metaphysics and religion. I will say but one word 
on pantheism. You seemed to me to understand the 
possibility of plunging into this absurd abyss, by a 



270 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

sort of yearning after the infinite. For my part, 
nothing ever appeared to me so clear a negation of 
the infinite as pantheism, as well as of the finite; it is* 
the shipwreck of both in the vague notion of the in- 
definite, which is nothing more than the possibility of 
the perpetual extension of the finite in the unbounded 
immensity of the infinite. The indefinite, apart 
from the two terms finite and infinite, is the last 
degree of the incomprehensible and the absurd. This 
is why pantheism revolts me by a direct and absolute 
negation of common sense. I prefer downright 
materialism. There we have nothing but matter, 
which exists because it does, and there ? s an end of it. 
I should have been better pleased, then, if you had 
not done pantheism the honor to believe that it can 
seduce the mind by a certain charm. To my mind it 
is nothing but an immense void. 

Do you mean to tell me that I did not inform you 
of the ugly turn the influenza was taking with me ? 
That is strange. I was firmly persuaded that, in my 
last letter but one, I had enlisted your sympathy for 
my poor body, which, however, is daily getting 
stronger, and is getting ready for that beautiful festi- 
val of St. Maximin's, from which you will have the 
courage to absent yourself. I am persuaded, my dear 
friend, that you«*vould have nursed me admirably, 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 271 

and that your presence would have been a vivifying 
balm to me. But that was not worth the while. I 
reserve you for the great occasion when they will 
have to close my eyes. I entertain the hope that 
God will give me some presentiment of it, and that I 
shall be able to have you with me in that terrible 
passage, during which no one is sure of being calm. 
I often think of it, although as yet I have no definite 
sign of the end. 



cv. 

lad (Eompng. 

Soreze, May 8, 1860. 
My deae Friend, 

YOUR letter brought me two pieces of good news. 
The first is your having broken with some of 
your former companions, whose conversation was not 
strictly moral. I cannot sufficiently congratulate you 
upon this resolution. For, believe me, all our life 
depends upon the persons with whom we live on 
terms of familiarity. Familiarity gets us used to 
things as well as to persons, and what at first appeared 
to us odious and abject, ends by entering into our 
habits. The ear loses its delicacy, the heart its 

modesty, the mind its clearness ; we end by taking to 
23* 



272 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

what once appeared repulsive, and from words we 
proceed to acts, which complete our corruption. This 
is the history of the propagation of evil upon earth. 
I am then delighted at your having broken with those 
young men, and that you have found others more 
worthy of you. Be convinced, you do not require 
much to distract you pleasantly. If one real friend 
is enough, a few comrades are enough too. Besides, 
good company begets good company, and although 
less numerous than bad, it also, thank God, may be 
found in some strength. Thank you for your por- 
trait. It will remind me of the time of your first 
youth, and will not grow old like ourselves. 

Adieu, I expect you soon. I repeat to you before- 
hand all that I am to you. 



CVI. 

fgradtaa n\ (pratian 2Kj[*.— 3fo a jpujjit 

Soreze, June 15, 1860. 
My dear Friend, 

YOUR last letter gratified me ; it proved to me that 
you are not indifferent to the school and your 
masters, and also that you are keeping to your good 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 273 

principles in the midst of the world. You have 
already been able to see the difficulties, sadness, and 
pain in which it abounds, and I congratulate you 
upon it, because you will have for it the feelings with 
which it ought to inspire you. 

You know what I told you to keep you immacula- 
tum ab hoc sceculo ; a very simple little rule, but one 
to which you will be invariably faithful. Prayer 
regularly morning and night, a short reading from 
the Gospel, monthly confession and communion, some 
penitential practice to keep you humble and chaste, 
and preserve you from the spirit of the world. This 
little will suffice, will preserve you, will raise you 
above the life of the senses, will keep you to God, 
will strengthen and console you. 



CVIL 

Soreze, June 19, 1860. 
Sir, 

I AM thankful to you for having called my atten- 
tion to the JExamen des Dogmes du ChriMianisme. 
I had heard talk of it, but did not think of reading 
it, these kind of publications being usually very 



274 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

shallow, although they do harm. Then again, I have 
been very little engaged in controversy, being con- 
vinced that the direct exposition of Christianity ruins 
beforehand all the objections brought against it. 
Christianity is like an old monument, with deep and 
solid foundations, and controversy like the sand 
driven against that indestructible mass by the wind. 

I do not, however, deny the utility of ansAvering 
attacks, and I should be glad if no hostile book 
appeared without getting a good stroke from the 
sword of truth. God has not left me sufficiently at 
liberty to wield this avenging blade. I have never 
written but at intervals, amid a multitude of occupa- 
tions, and age, instead of bringing me retirement and 
rest, has but increased the weight of my multifarious 
duties. My happiness would be to spend my declin- 
ing days quietly in writing for God, Jesus Christ, and 
the Church. But necessity commands me as it does 
all men, and my submissive powerlessness is doubtless 
more pleasing to God than the realization of my 
inmost wishes would be. 

I am very sensible, Sir, to the sentiments you ex- 
press in my regard, and beg you to accept mine, and 
to remember me before the Justice and Goodness 
wlrch enlighten us both. 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEJST. 275 

CVIII. 

Sthe £*ns*8. — ®tte ©ration. 

Soreze, t/ime 25, 1860. 
My dear Friend, 

WHAT you tell me of your soul gives me great 
fears for the future. What strikes me in the 
first place is that you do not talk of loving : it is not 
sincere and deep attachment of the heart, even were 
it unlawful, which seems to captivate you, but simply 
the senses. Your heart seems dead, whilst your im- 
agination is running after exclusively fleshly dreams. 
This is a state of mind which gives me pain. You 
think that if an occasion offered you would not resist. 
What an expression ! The occasion, that is to say, a 
chance, a casual facility, something with which the 
heart has nothing to do ! Fortunately, my dear friend, 
the man of honor never finds such occasions. You 
must of your own will either seek out places of in- 
famy, to lead astray a wife from her husband and 
children by premeditated treachery : or gain the af- 
fections of a young innocent person, hidden in the 
bosom of her family, to which honorable confidence 
has given you an entrance ; or seek out in the lower 



276 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

ranks of the working classes, a poor creature who 
cannot resist your wealth, your youth, your good 
looks, your deceitful promises, and make her for a 
time the instrument of pleasures from which she will 
one day reap nothing but desertion, contempt, and 
ruin of body and soul. Such are, my dear friend, 
the only alternatives left by nature and society to the 
passions you are nursing. In all this there is nothing 
but crime, nothing fortuitous. 

If you must have an occasion, it will be yourself 
who will seek it : it will not come and disturb your 
sleep, or snatch you from your solitude. This gives 
me a little comfort. 

I see, too, you talk to me of reason which checks 
you. Reason is not to be despised, but is weak 
against the onslaught of the senses backed by the 
imagination. Scripture says: "Nemo potest esse 
continens, nisi Deus, det." Now you do not feel the 
love of God, even whilst allowing that if you loved 
Him the miracle of chastity would be wrought in 
you. What will you then become ? I do not know. 
I hope and I fear. I have hopes because you seek 
good company, and have broken with loose compan- 
ions ; because you are or seem to be determined to go 
regularly to confession and communion ; because there 
is in you a sentiment of honor and religion ; finally, 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 277 

because I love you, and you seem determined always 
to open your heart to me. I have fears because you 
do not love God, because you are a stranger to inte- 
rior and exterior mortification, because your fortune 
opens to you the great door of the passions, idleness ; 
and lastly, because your heart has less share in your 
being than your senses. Oh ! if by clasping you to 
mine, I could give you an idea of the deep joys of 
continence, and of what a soul is when mistress of 
the body ! If you could experience what I do, and 
look upon your body as a focus of tenderness and 
sacrifice for God ! But all this is hidden from you. 
You have as yet reached but the vestibule of virtue, 
and you will perhaps not reach the sanctuary without 
having profaned the temple ! This does not prevent 
me from loving you : and it may be that my fear 
contributes to it as much as my hope. God loves 
man : how could man do other than love his fellow- 
man? 

* Adieu, I embrace you, and leave without quitting 
you. 



278 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

CIX. 

W$fm the jjjmla xrf gouth. 

Soreze, Ji% 26, 1860. 
My dear Friekd, 

ON my return from the Hermes waters, I received 
your letter of July the 8th, and I have just re- 
ceived that of the 24th. My silence was occasioned 
by the backward state of my correspondence, but I 
had you in my mind, and was daily looking out for 
a moment to write to you. Your last letter frightens 
me. It appears to me that you are on the eve of a 
fall : it would be a terrible thing for you : for your 
return, if once you fell away, would be extremely 
difficult. When vice which has been curbed breaks 
out, it is like a torrent which has burst through the 
dyke and destroys all before it. You have received 
much : Jesus Christ has discovered Himself to you 
in an especial manner. Ah, could you but love 
Him ! Could you but love His body torn and mac- 
erated for you ! But this adorable body speaks but 
faintly to you : it is as much as you do to give it a 
passing look, and the eye of your heart immediately 
turns away to follow the flesh under its seductive 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 279 

forms. I am sure you have been a long time away 
from confession and communion, and still you prom- 
ised me to go every month. 

"What can you expect to become with a life of per- 
petual pleasure, nowise counterbalanced by the serious 
practices of religion ? Come and see me soon. You 
know that our exercises will take place on Monday 
the 6th of August, and the distribution of prizes the 
day after. A few days afterwards, I shall leave for 
Burgundy, make a few visits on the road, and shall 
be back about the middle of September. 

Consequently the only opportunity we shall have 

of seeing each other will be at the distribution of 

prizes or the few days following. You ought never 

to let a month go by without coming to see me. You 

can do this very easily, since your town is very near 

Toulouse where you are going to study the law. For, 

all things considered, you had better study it there. 

Without frequent intercourse between us you will go 

to ruin, my dear friend, and the barrier once down, 

God only knows what will become of you. I am 

your ship and your haven : never forget this. I shall 

expect you then at the beginning of August, and in 

the meantime I embrace you and renew to you the 

expression of my very sincere friendship* 
24 



280 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

ex. 

<©n ttt* flotation to. ttt SUtifltous life. 

Soreze, J"wfy 31, 1860. 

THE great point for you is to find out whether you 
have a real vocation, whether you understand the 
sacrifice of your whole being to the cause of God, of 
Jesus Christ and of His Church. It did, in fact, ap- 
pear to me that you had the germs of it, with the ex- 
ception of a rather wayward and somewhat unmanage- 
able character. This is, in my opinion, the great 
obstacle in your way. Can you be obedient ? Can 
you defer to the authority of superiors ? Will you 
not cling to your own ideas and will ? To reform 
your character in this respect will certainly try you, 
but every man who gives himself to God must reform 
something. You have, then, to look into yourself, 
and to see whether you feel called to leave the world 
in order to devote yourself to the education and in- 
struction of youth. If you do come I shall be very 
glad, as I have always esteemed and trusted you, and 
am persuaded that God will return you a hundred-fold 
what you give Him. 



LETTERS TO YO UNG MEN. 281 



CXI. 

% WLm& nhont Jtalg. 

Flavigny, Sept 4, 1860. 

I HAVE been at Flavigny for the last three days, 
and am well pleased with my visit as well as with 
the results of the congregation we held. I found all 
hearts at peace, sincere confidence in me, and an affec- 
tion manifested by unequivocal signs. I am author- 
ized to choose a provincial vicar, and to entrust to 
him the heavy burden of administration. I shall be 
behind my vicar for the weightier cases, and represent 
the province before the public. 

It will considerably lighten my work, and will give 
me more rest, and allow me to take up pursuits more 
in harmony with my tastes, as well as with the inter- 
ests of religion. 

My dear friend, I am not thoroughly up in unde- 
ceptions, because I have never been thoroughly up in 
deceptions. What we are witnessing must necessarily 
have happened, supposing Italy once left to herself; 
and although the heads of that country appear to me 
to. manage the affairs of her nationality and her liberty 
badly, still I am convinced that the final result will 



282 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

be the federation of Italy, fresh safety secured to the 
temporal power of the Pope, and the ruin of despotism 
and demagogy. This is my firm belief, because God 
stands behind man, and is greater than man. 



CXII. 

Soreze, Oct. 1 5 1861. 

WHAT is going forward in Italy will become a 
supreme struggle between the demagogical and 
constitutional parties. Everything in the plans of 
all the powers is so confused that it is impossible to 
foresee the immediate issue of events. But I still hold 
to the belief that Italy will get rid of Austria, will be 
federate, that the Pope will recover a sufficient portion 
of his states, and that the future will be preferable, 
both in a temporal and spiritual point of view. 

The designs of man cannot prevail against the fore? 
of things and the will of God. 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 283 



CXIII. 

% $onl hesitating bttwttn (Sod and (Ml — 
®arninp, ffltmtts, (Bntreatiw* 

Soreze, Oc^. 4, 1860. 
My dear Friend, 

I AM very sorry I shall not see you before the end 
of October. Your visit would have given me 
real pleasure, and have afforded me an opportunity 
of talking to you about your soul and its wants. The 
ennui, the sadness, and disgust you experience are 
quite natural in your state of mind and body. You 
have not to work for a living, and thus you are de- 
prived of the ambition and necessity which urge on 
the greater part of mankind. All your time is before 
you, with unvarying pleasures which cannot eternally 
be filling up the twenty-four hours of the day. On 
the other hand, you have not got vice for a distraction. 
Not that it would be a remedy for you : on the con- 
trary, you would experience in it a poignant bitterness 
which would disgust you with yourself. 

Vice is so infamous in its pleasures, and at the same 
time so short-lived a resource, that it beguiles a few 
moments only at the price of the most crushing re- 
morse. But it would at least, you may say, give you 

24* 



284 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

a shock like what drunkenness gives to those who 
endeavor to forget their misfortunes in it. This 
shameful and dearly purchased shock you cannot 
have. God has shown Himself to you too clearly to 
admit of the possibility of your abandoning yourself 
for any length of time to the delirium of your imagi- 
nation and your senses. You would be so vile in 
your own eyes, so branded, so tortured with remorse 
that experience would appear to you harder than 
everything else. God loves you, He has taken pos- 
session of you, He will not let you go. He will visit 
your faults with a chastisement by the side of w T hich 
the most cruel punishment of your body would dwindle 
away to nothing. Consequently this door is shut to 
you. You may dream of vile pleasures, but you will 
never give yourself up to them without frightful re- 
morse. 

Still if vice is painful, and as it were, impossible 
to you, you are not in possession of the joy and peace 
of virtue. You are lukewarm and languid in God's 
service. Prayer, communion, penance, pious reading, 
all that sustains and enraptures the soul is almost 
unknown to you. In these matters you have no 
regular habits, you live upon fugitive impressions, 
going to confession and communion now and then, to 
mass on Sundays, keeping the abstinence days of the 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 285 

Church, but not loving Jesus Christ tenderly, as your 
best friend, ready at every instant to press Him to 
your heart, to give Him your life, to suffer for Him 
in your body every opprobrium and every kind of 
pain, to be scourged and crucified for Him like He 
was for you. The Crucified One does not speak to 
your soul, and counterbalance in it those shameful 
desires. What then remains to you ? A void. You 
are wandering in a dark and chilly tomb, haunted by 
frightful apparitions, ready to grasp at them as you 
would at immortal realities. Jesus Christ stops you, 
He reminds you of Himself, He says to you, I love 
you, I died for you ; if you only knew the happiness 
of loving Me ! 

My poor friend, such is your state. It will only 
cease by your giving yourself to God. To this end it 
is not necessary to become a priest or a monk. No. 
A man may love God tenderly and ardently in every 
position. But you must mill it ; and in order thereto 
,lay down an inviolable rule of your relations with 
Him. Daily prayer, morning and evening ; monthly 
confession and communion, practices of penance and 
humility, which by humbling you, by chastening your 
mind and senses, will naturally increase your love. 
For love springs out of sacrifice, and especially out 
of the sacrifice of pride. You are vain, my dear 



280 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

friend. You like show; you like your horse and 
your groom ; you wish to be considered a fine young 
fellow and to be looked at ; you are proud of your 
nobility ; you are, in fine, a little animal filled with 
a variety of different kinds of pride, so natural to you 
that perhaps you do not even notice them. Conse- 
sequently no one has more need than yourself of vol- 
untary and involuntary humiliation. 

See how I talk to you. Alas ! it is because I love 
you, and would willingly suffer much to give you the 
love of God. You are naturally cold, and still there 
are resources in your heart. Your friendship for me 
is one of them ; but you must make use of it in the 
supernatural order, and give me a detailed account of 
all that goes on within you. What a time since you 
have come to confession to me ! Already you have 
begun to find this disclosure difficult, even to me, 
your friend. Come then and see me as soon as pos- 
sible, and keep me well informed of your interior 
state. I no longer know an iota of what you do for 
God or against Him. 

Adieu, my very dear child, I embrace and love you. 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 287 



CXIV. 

®n jpwsmranre m Christian Winp. 

Soreze, Nov. 30, 1860. 
My dear Friend, 

IT was with very great interest that I received your 
letter, and I was greatly consoled to find that you 
are holding courageously to the principles and senti- 
ments of your education. It is the greatest reward I 
can receive for the affection I showed you. You are 
to-day able to compare the soul raised by Christianity 
above vile desires, with the soul sunk in the grovel- 
ling instincts of the body. 

Those poor young men no longer have even shame ; 
victims of their senses^ they have not strength enough 
even to throw a veil over the interior disorder of their 
imagination. They must discover themselves fully, 
and have forgotten how to blush. You, my dear 
friend, are profiting by the strength you acquired at 
Soreze, with us ; it sustains you, elevates you, con- 
soles you under the eye of conscience, and whether 
you look to the future or the past, returns you a 
hundred-fold what it costs you. 

You have some good companions at Paris, I 



288 LETTERS TO YO UNO MEN. 

trust that they too will remain faithful to their post, 
and that you will find in their company both strength 
and pleasure. They are very distinguished young 
men. I advise you to see them as often as possible. 
Noble company is one of the first and purest pleasures 
of man, even supposing the atmosphere to be not very 
vivifying to virtue. 

I also recommend you not to lay aside your old 
religious practices — no single one of them is useless. 
Willed and inspired by God for the wants of our 
present life, in the spiritual and moral order, they are 
as indispensable to the health of the soul, as the sun, 
food, exercise, and rest are to the health of the body. 

Choose a director in whom you have confidence; 
see him from time to time ; communicate, if not once 
a month, at least on all great festivals ; think more 
and more of God, of Jesus Christ, of His Church, and 
your life as a Christian will for ever stand upon 
i m movable foundations. 



LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 289 

CXY. 

(fhrfetmnifB and §nnocnt^ 

Soreze, Feb. 23, 1861. 
Sir, 

IN my reception-speech at the French Academy, 
upon which you are kind enough to congratulate 
me, I did not intend to set up the American democ- 
racy as the ideal type of human societies, but to show 
by a palpable comparison the grave difference between 
the spirit which founded the United States of Amer- 
ica, and that which since 1798 has been animating 
the majority of European liberals and democrats. 

Even supposing the United States destined to exist 
for a long period, it would not thence follow that they 
are to be set up as the invariable and universal type 
of all free societies. In this, as well as elsewhere, 
variety is a law of the world, and assuredly no two 
things were less like each other than England and 
France from 1814 to 1848, although both were enjoy- 
ing monarchical and parliamentary institutions. In 
this matter the spirit is the great point ; it is the anti- 
religious, levelling, civil-centralizing spirit which has 
rendered abortive the great revolution of 1789, and 



290 LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN. 

has always prevented it from producing the results 
we had a right to expect from it. 

So long as this spirit exists, liberalism will be van- 
quished by an oppressive democracy, or by unbridled 
autocracy, and this is why the union of liberty and 
Christianity is the sole possible salvation of the future. 
Christianity alone can give liberty its real nature, 
and liberty alone can give Christianity the means of 
influence necessary to it. M. de Tocqueville under- 
stood this, and this is the great feature of his life. 
Christianity made him a complete liberal, pure, dis- 
interested, superior to the parties which divided the 
men of his day, and God willed that despite this 
superiority, he should win the unanimous homage of 
France, Europe, and America. His opinions, like 
his memory, should be the compass of all those who 
think like you, Sir, and in the eulogium which I 
passed upon him, on a memorable occasion, I had no 
other intention than to throw into relief a figure evi- 
dently given us as a model. 

Chateaubriand, OConnell, Frederic Ozanam, 
Tocqueville, such are in the generation which is 
dying out, our fathers and guides. I trust the race 
will live, and my consolation is to think that I fol- 
low, although at a great distance, in their footsteps. 



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